The late arrival of key players is a poor excuse as we had a settled 17 against London and Catalans and Saints but then he started his tinkering...

It's a squad game though mate nowadays and things like injuries....loss of form etc will play a part....

There was 2 changes from Catalans to London and then 3 changes from London to St Helens, so not really a settled 17......Siejka arriving was probably the thing that threw the biggest spanner in the works so I believe I was justified in pointing to late arrivals......a fair amount of the tinkering has obviously been to accomodate Harry into the side....

The time to judge on decisions/selections like that though wasn't after 6 or 7 rounds and after a few heavy defeats.....or after Siejka had played a couple of games......it was at the business end of the season.....I wonder in say another 6 or 7 games time how many people will be happy and applauding what Siejka is doing on the field? For that to bear fruit it did cost the team without a doubt.....Agar was in a no win situation with that though because earlier in the season when fans were talking of tinkering with the side and trying new things out they were saying do it against the top teams....well we did that against Leeds twice and Huddersfield.....then with the couple of weeks break all that will have played a part in the win at Hull.....ideally all that could have been done in pre-season.....and if it had, then maybe I would feel more of the criticism may have been a bit more justified.....

Is this the Bradford thread or the "SNIPE AT OTHER POSTERS" THREAD.

Sorry mate, my fault......got a bit distracted there....I will say no more



Wouldnt have a problem Bradford getting 2 points back if they have satisfied a few debts here and there.....just hope any possible deduction doesn't have any bearing on who gets relegated.....

I've said on another thread, as things stand now, if we win four more games between now and the end of the season then Bradford will need to win 50% of their remaining games to go above us.

Getting two or more points back is vital to them or they're down, if they do get points back then our game at Odsal takes on epic proportions

Independent panel giving the verdict I wonder who is on that panel and if it will be announced who sits on that panel ?.

There's a difference?

Ok, Upthecats and others....
No problem with what you are saying but it's on the wrong thread. Leave this one to discussing the Bradford points. We have 20 others about Agar and if you need to chat by all means PM each other.

I'll clean up any follow ups when I'm back on laptop.

I see no reason why they should get points back; their claim of 'force majeure' is insulting and derisory and it should be treated as such.

However, I have no faith that the independent panel is actually independent; in the same way that the 'independent' accountancy firm who made financial assessments of clubs during the last round of licencing, these things can be foregone conclusions, if the body convening the panel makes clear what outcome it wants.

Bren - that's why I wonder if the names of those on the panel will be made public knowledge.Just so we all know its above board

Unforeseeable - Only to the blind bats who were running Bradford at that time - to the rest of the Rugby League world then it was fairly obvious.

Unavoidable - Only if you make no effort to reduce the playing budget knowing full well that it is far above what you can afford to pay.


If that's the grounds of appeal they should be laughed out of the hearing!!

It would be nice at the end of the season to be in a position where we didn't need to worry about Bradford and their points..

I haven't read in depth the appeal or RFL policy to know all the ins and outs to give an informed opinion about whether Bradford should get any or all the points back. Fairness, honesty and transparency is all I want..

To be honest there were pages of upset posters saying how corrupt the RFL was before the decision was made. This gives rise to it all again.
I'm happy with how it was handled first time so lets see if it stays that way.

But it won't help Bradford if it isn't independent of the RFL. Think of the effect of on Bradford of having those six points deducted, in terms of how they presented as a business opportunity and how the players felt about staying, as well as general morale and paying customers through the gates. It wrecked their season.

So how could it possibly do the RFL any good to have any points returned, as it says "you got it wrong and ruined Bradford"?

If it was handled properly the first time around, then how can they justify an appeal ?

The RFL management team clearly has no capacity for forward thinking; hence they are perpetually beset by the unintended consequences of their actions. Bradford are a case in point - many could argue that the RFL's cack-handed attempts to save them has actually made their situation much worse.

I think this one is about appeasing those people who believe that 6 points is too harsh, whilst maintaining the illusion of having followed due process.

That's my suspicion. The rules of natural justice state that a sanction should have an appeal process. I wonder if Bradford threatened judicial review and an injunction to halt the season.

Let them have the appeal. Give them back two points to appease and the lawyers stay out of it. That is probably the thinking.

You may remember the last round of franchising and the last minute demise of Crusaders saving us, one or two people believed it wasn't us that got saved that day.

Of course no one would believe that an independent body could not have known about said other teams financial problems and of course at the time money was no object for the Wildcats.

Most processes like this have an appeal process built in.
If the answer is that they reviewed it and they still agree 6 points then what's the problem.
If they say circumstances have changed and by the rules some should be returned then that's ok too.

Most appeal processes (including the RFL's disciplinary one) have an element of jeopardy, to deter non-meritorious appellants; this one doesn't.

These are my thoughts - why wouldn't they appeal ? , there's no reason not to . If there was a chance of a bigger points deduction then maybe they'd think twice , but as it stands ..well you might as well chance you're arm .

From an outsider here's what it seems.
Wakefield got double the central funding that Bradford did...they then got a further boost with a share of Bradfords withheld money.....which allowed them to get 2 of Bradfords better players.....but now you're upset because you will, in all probability ONLY have a 4 points start over Bradford in the league table.
Trust me, if they finish above you in the league and you get relegated, you DO deserve to go down.

If we didn't have to sell half of our team due to being told if we went into admin we'd be out of SL we would be no where near the relegation zone.

Don't let facts get in the way of the 'outsider' ....

From an outsider to the Bradford situation here's how it seems:

Bradford were bailed out several times by the RFL and the true details were only made public when the sh** hit the fan.
Bradford were clearly (even before the reduced SKY money situation) running with a squad they could not afford but even after a first administration made no significant attempt to reduce that cost. It was therefore clearly only a matter of time before they found themselves in trouble again.
With reduced funding surely anyone with any nous could see that they would be even less able to sustain that level of expenditure on playing squad, but did they make much effort to reduce it?? Not as far as I can tell.
Wakefield made significant efforts to reduce our playing costs to a sustainable level.


I do agree with your final statement though - if they finish above us in the league then we do deserve to go down.
I personally would like to see us finish enough points above them to be able to say that the deduction made no difference.