As I have said elsewhere, and as other Bulls fans have posted on this thread, this all reads like groundhog day for us. It's all almost word for word where we were several years ago. The only real difference is that ours was down to having no money, which led to a long term decline. Yours can't be down to that, so presumably can be fixed far more quickly?

Down to retirement of the senior players and top players being pillaged by union/NRL in a short space of time. In the last few years they've lost Sculthorpe, Long, Cunningham, Graham and Eastmond. Roby is all that's left. Wellens is hardly the player he was, and the young players aren't ready yet.

I can only assume your redneck upbringing left you educationally bereft and unable to read.



There sure were. Unlike you I don't know whether any of them wanted to sign for Saints. Perhaps you should ask Deep Throat?



Aside from myself and a few others no one thought we needed a scrum half. I certainly don't remember YOU putting your head above the parapet and claiming such.

Anybody who can come in and offer new plays and organise the team will be better that Royce ATM.

Would love Daniel Anderson but can't see him coming over full time? John Kear is knowledgeable of the game and could possibly take over for the rest of the season until Eamon can sort something more permanent? Brian Noble possibly? Justin Morgan were is he?

know admitting things about your rivals is difficult but its not just fitness where there's no comparison between our teams. man for man I'd take 4 or 5 of your players for our 17.

anyway, I didn't come to argue that. watching the game again, just exactly what is jon wilkin bringing to your side at the minute? as an experienced member of the team he should be leading from the front. his running, tackling, kicking, discipline and general play is very poor. its easy to bag a guy like foster or lay into wellens for being slow (welcome to the last 10 years there) or claim royce has no idea but wilkin at the minute typifies a collection of well paid experienced players who are hanging your young lads (wheeler, gaskell, lomax, makinson) out to dry. the same happened with our post mike greg team when guys like brown, robinson, aspinwall, hodgson slowly drifted out of the first team as the experienced players around them failed to pull their weight.

Totally disagree with Kieron Purtell as surly that's his job now? i know Royce is head coach but I'm sure Kieron must have a big say in tactics and coaching? so get rid of both?

The last thing Saints want is another good-but-not-great coach tied to a long-term contract as Noble will inevitably demand.

No money plus a truly appalling recruitment and retention policy. Some of Saints decisions (starting the season without a scrum half, signing a good NRL second rower and playing him at prop) are remarkably Bradfordian.

In some areas I don't think we are as bad as people are suggesting. I don't think motivation or fitness are real issues, and our defence, while far from excellent, has been much improved in the last few weeks.

Where we are really struggling is in our attack. It's absolutely woeful. There is virtually nobody running off the ball at any time. We don't even seem to do the simple lead runner and guy round the back play anymore. We are playing with so few options that we are easy to defend against. This problem is causing a couple of issues:

1. We are failing to capitalise on decent territory earned the hard way by our forwards in the first half of games. This is resulting in a visible wave of panic going through the side that only serves make the fundamental problem worse.

2. Our forwards are running out of juice by the hour mark. I think this is being mistaken for a lack of effort or fitness, when in fact it is down to the fact that our hopelessly predictable attack means our opponents can easily put numbers in the tackle against them. They might as well have 'hit me' written on their shirts.

The lack of structure in our attack is alarming, and you have to place responsibility for that sort of thing with the coaching team.

Simmons is doing himself no favours wearing the cheap looking track-suit top for interviews. It is not a good look for a man of his age and actually gives him the look of a "skip-dipper" from the council tip.

All of those players were on serious coin, and their salaries will have been paid out to other players who've either joined the cluib, or advanced through the ranks.

The problem IMO is two-fold.

Firstly, the players brought in just haven't been of the same quality. Some came with big reputations and haven't lived up to them; others were younger players who've not fulfilled their promise (indeed seem to have gone backwards). Every club signs these players - it's just that here we've had a procession of them. Is this poor recruitment, simple bad luck or bad coaching?

Which brings me to the second part of the problem. Look at the evolution of our team over the course of Super League, and especially from Millward onwards. Millward brought a cavalier attitude to our play (reminscent of the pre-Sl era, although now with good players and a no longer financially dominant wi*an). Our gameplan was aided by quick PTB's and keeping the opposition on the back foot when we got on a roll, along with keeping the ball alive. Our defence at times was bobbins, though. Anderson toughened the defence and brought more organisation. And, although we lost the unpredictability of the Millward golden era, we still played mostly entertaining rugby.

The rot, IMO, came with Potter. More organisation, less unpredictability. Although we conceded less, we became much easier to defend against. This was the culture in which many of our players now in the team were brought through in. The Potter appointment, with hindsight, was a very poor one. Not that he's necessarily a bad coach, but because he was wrong for Saints. I guess one mitigating factor is that around the time Potter came in, the RFL were tinkering with the rules and the interpretation thereof in terms of the ruck. After a period of ensuring players had to let the tackled player up immediately with a 10m defensive line rigidly enforced, defences were given much more latitude to slow the PTB and the distance to the defensive line seems far shorter these days. We were never going to consistently drive teams back with uber-quick PTB's and scoots from dummy half, so Potter had to change our 'plan A'. It's just that he never came up with anything effective, and we eneded up playing one-dimensional, boring rugby.

So, after Potter, we needed a top level coach to get the team back to their 'entertainers' culture. Unfortunately, on current evidence, Simmons unable to do this. If anything, we've gone further backwards in terms of attacking flair.

But we cannot panic now and sack Simmons - unless there is a top-class coach available (which I don't think there is) because, as Mugwump says, it'd be counter-productive (and more damaging in the long-term) to hand the reigns to an average coach for anything other than the rest of the season, and the type of coaches who'd take a short-term contract wouldn't, IMO, be of the calibre needed to turn our season around.

The issue I have with Royce, though, is that he seems too stubborn and, when an idea or tactic isn't working, he won't recognise this and remedy it, preferring to keep plugging away in the vain hope it'll come good, when everyone else can see it won't.

The change I'd make is that, now Lance is more familiar with the team, he should play at No7. He's an experienced player and should be given the role of organiser-in-chief.

Whilst it is clear that our squad is not as good as it has been in previous years, and that we have lost some class players in important positions. I think people need to look at the squad and compare it to other teams. We have a very competitive squad on paper, but we are under-performing. Regardless of the challenges of having an inexperienced half back pairing, lacking leadership, and losing graham we should still be doing much better. We aren't doing the basics right, and we are clueless in attack.

We still, despite the current weaknesses in the squad, have the quality to achieve top 4, so questions have to be asked why it isn't happening and what is going to be done about it.

Hallelujah! When will the penny finally drop with everyone else?