Seeing Gale go down on Saturday was just galling. They had looked fairly well organised with him on the field both in attack and defence but you're right, once he went off it all went to pot.

It's symptomatic of a recent disease that has plagued the Bulls. They are obviously given a strict gameplan before heading out on the field and are often pretty well equipped to carry that out. However, something changes to affect circumstances on the pitch or the make-up of the team, they seem completely unable to adapt.

Most of them lack the ability to think on their feet so just tend to panic when a spanner is thrown in the works - as they did when Gale went off. They went from a team unit to 13 individuals doing 13 different things. You can't fault Sammut for his effort but his struggles in the organisational role encapsulated this problem.

Coming back to the injuries, can it be mere coincidence? I'm not a believer in luck so is there something the Bulls could do better in preparation to prevent this problem recurring year after year?

The familiar argument is that these are impact injuries rather than soft tissue injuries so can't be prevented but is that strictly true? Are the players going into contact unprepared because they aren't fit enough to front up to physically superior players? Is their tackle technique putting undue strain on joints, bones and ligaments? Whatever the case, the coaching staff should be seeking answers because they can't keep playing the plucky losers - bad luck is only an excuse in isolated incidences, not over the course of a full season.

You've got to worry about modern day SL players.

The number of injuries that are being suffered and more importantly, the number of long term injuries that are being suffered seems to get worse year after year.

How many players are out long term after 3 games?

The 10m rule makes collisions a lot harder and players are bigger and stronger than ever so its no wonder there are plenty of injuries. That said it's common to get more injuries when you go into a collision when you're mismatched physically i.e the opponent is bigger and stronger than you or if you're not fully committed. Certain player in our squad could improve their physical presence and others could include their tackling technique and show greater commitment. It'd certainly help their performance and may reduce our number of injuries. One for the coaches and conditioners...

As Arnold Palmer famously said, "The more I practice the luckier I get".

its a real struggle isnt it!