Couldn’t see a thread for the game. How do we think they’ll line up and any predictions on the result?

Kibula has gone to Dewsbury on loan and DFJ played for the reserves yesterday so they won't feature.
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Be interesting how we go. York are in great form and looking at their team sheet, pretty much full strength apart from Pauli Pauli suspended.

Lose and it will be 1 from 6 at home...

1 win and 6 defeats at home so far this season. Speaks volumes. Mid table obscurity definitely on the cards.

Well that rules Dunning out of the job.

I tried to drum up enough enthusiasm to go today.

I didn't.

And I'm glad I didn't now too.

I wonder how many fans like me who have been through it all just can't be d anymore now too?

It's going to be a hard sell for the rest of the season, isn't it?

Absolute sh*t show of a performance. 20 - 6 could have quite easily been 40-6

Completely outplayed, but to be fair the goal line D was fantastic........ until, Crossley and Baldwinson come off the bench, within one min they both miss the tackle on O'Hagan and let him walse through to kill the game off.

Absutely sick of Crossley he would be gone tommorow if i were in charge. Doesnt even deserve a shirt let alone captain he a disgrace, and with out singling him out, Walker, and Kear can follow him.

I didn't go either today. Just can't face it. I'll start to go again when players look like they're fit and not just tossing it off. We need to appoint a new coach ASAP or this season will be a complete write off. As someone who's been through thick and thin for decades if I can't be bothered anymore it's a worry.

I feel the same the way. My support for the club is dwindling. Years and years of poor leadership have made me almost numb to all of this now. Over the last 20+ years I’ve invested time, money and so much emotion into this club. It’s become a frustratingly predictable chore watching us for the last 18 months and now even I can’t bring myself to waste more money watching this team.

Hopefully a new coach can clear out the deadwood and get this team to at least compete on the field next year. I’m very disengaged from this club at the moment.

Different coach, same result. I really would like to say something positive about Dunning's first home gme in charge, but it isn't easy. Bulls were their own worse enemy. The large amount of unforced errors together with pi$$ poor finishing, wrong decisions at crucial times, and a faster expansive style of play, all resulted in a performance to forget.
The style of rugby which the team was trying to play was totally different to Kear's mantra of drive it down the middle. We had plenty of possession, and it was slightly better to watch, but inevitably the pace of play resulted in errors which really shouldn't have been made. Our half backs really need some fine tuning as they made countless errors today.
York were nothing special -we just made them look good. The result should have been far closer than it was, but we really lacked creative ideas at the last play the ball and were being found out too easily by the opposition. Unfortunately, today's performance perfectly demonstrated the skill level of the players we have available.
Problem is that I just don't see a way to improve the situation this season. For me, I will continue to support the team when I can, but I'll be very suprised if we finish higher than 8th given the status quo

I'm the same. Listening on the the radio just seemed the usual inevitability of it all. Force a Goal line drop out, Kear, one of our most experienced players dropping the ball from the resulting drop out, York go up the other end and score.

It does sound like Dunning is trying to get us to play more expansive, but we really need some new blood to come in and get a hold of this lot.

Got to love these expert comments from people who didnt even go to the game.

Went today with a mate, a Bulls fan of many years. Bit like watching my team, Warrington. Pack neither big nor tough enough giving the halves very little to work off. Was told Bulls seem to be trying to move the ball more but without real go-forward errors occur. Change takes time so give it a few weeks. I'm happy to give Powell a season. First visit to Odsal for years and it brought memories of a few hammerings. Don't mention Catalan and dreading Thursday!

You think we look fit enough?

Besides the performance today that p***ed me off that touch judge really needs to go to Specsavers, some of his decisions were horrendous.

It's strange. It might have been the equivalent of WWII Blitz bunker spirit, but Bongser seems to recall a lot more positivity (and more posters - but the latter's the same everywhere) on this forum during the dark days of the Admin 3 / Liquidation thread - all 4 thousand pages of it.

On that topic, what did become of the tea lady?



The danger that The Bulls (and, for now, generously proportioned Nige) are facing is people getting out of the habit of attending.

Bongser spent a dozen years from the early 90s, trouping about the Home Counties where the pubs wouldn't show RL on the box as a matter of principle. When he finally settled back in the North, it was in South Manchester with a young family and a time-demanding (now ex-) wife. Bongser was out of the habit of attending Leigh games and the club lost (not through their own fault) about 20 years of one man's custom.

Bulls need a new coach in place now rather than later, one who is supported (from above) to plan for next year before more get out of the habit of going.

Agreed. I think they’ve been allowed to play what they see. But the dropped balls, we just gave York ball after ball. I don’t think it was that bad. Effort was there, we scrambled until the 80th minute in defence. We created enough opportunities to win that game and blew them all. We gifted York 2 or 3 opportunities and they were taken. Fitness didn’t seem to drop off in that game, even though we did the majority of defending. Completion rate must have been below 70% .
A big concern was that for the 2nd game in a row there must have been less than 2000 there.

Exactly this

Bulls: Our pitch is too narrow to play expansive rugby
Also Bulls: Is seven times in on game a record for going into touch?

My take on the game...
Positives.
They held us up over the line at least 8 times
Patton and Lilley put tremendous shifts in it's just their timing is way off having been on 'drop off' duty all season
Brad England was immense
Some of the team looked fitter
Had we had Millar in the wing we'd have doubled our try tally
Wallace and Butler looked reasonably class before being injured

Negatives
Walker
Crossley
Having both of the above on the park together.
Stood watching each other when the ball went to ground costing a try
The usual suspects were blowing out of the wrong end after 60 mins causing the usual collapse. (See Walker and Crossley)
Anyone breaking the line is on their own.

It was more entertaining to watch than earlier games but it ws probably one of the most stop/start games I've ever seen

Pretty much all the games are like that now. The 6 again rule is ruining the game. Teams are deliberately interfering early in the tackle count as the "penalty" is of no disadvantage. You get penalised more for kicking the ball dead.

So you’ll be amazed that Crossley was awarded Bulls man of the match in Rugby League Express.
I am not criticising you or the journalist as I’m currently in Australia and obviously couldn’t be at Odsal.

The NRL have re-introduced penalties for ruck interference in the 20m area and it's helped greatly. Why we haven't done the same is anyone's guess. I know we're a few years behind the Aussies but this is a no brainer, we could just do it now and it'd improve the game.

I don't think I am amazed by anything in RL anymore sadly.

Brad England would have been my MoM. He ran his blood to water, seemed to be in every tackle and made a decent break... a break so good in fact the rest of his team mates stopped what they were doing to admire his work.

I reckon the jounalist was in Australia too...

I can see it's going to take time to adapt to a new more expansive gameplan given that we've played up the jumper stuff for ages. It'd also be good to see us try the odd offload as the opposition always kill us with these yet we manage about one a game.

This all depends on us being fit enough but it should be easy to lose the flab (just eat healthily). I'd be interested to see if this happens over the coming weeks.

I thought individually we worked hard, particularly in goal line defence but as a team in possession our work off the ball is non-existent. No runners, no options, not following or at times even looking at the play. On our left edge is so flat Gill is often in front of Kear.

Lilley and England tried to get the ball out but nobody was watching. We're so slow at the ruck, Doyle needs a coach to really get a grip of him because he's playing at the pace of Crossley.

At the pre-match press briefing Dunning was asked what he was looking for to improve.
"Energy levels"......
How can such a state of affairs been allowed to happen?