Keyes now confirmed to be out with a knee injury.

All pretty frustrating isn't it. 


The same issues seem to be repeating themselves and over 3 coaching regimes and an enormous amount of playing staff. 


In somewhat of a defence to the players and coaches, it must be difficult with some full time players and some not. 
It's hard to get stuck in to and fix some of these issues as a group with this set up. 


We are still 3rd (joint second) with a huge part to play in our own destiny. 
I know I tend to be glass half full and really hope they kick on for half 2 of the season. 

One interesting point Brian Noble mentioned in his pre-match comments was that we've only really been comprehensively beaten once all year (Toulouse away). Our other 3 league defeats have seen us lose by 2 points twice and 8 points. Like others have said, we aren't getting blown away by teams and it sort of feels like we are the masters of our downfall by losing so narrowly. Cut out the self-inflicted errors and mistakes and these narrow loses will hopefully turn into wins.

I agree with all that.   It's so frustrating when losses are down to things where we aren't learning.  One day we'll get through a game without mucking up receiving the ball from a kick off or by needlessly being forced into touch or dropping the ball and then compounding it by giving away a penalty.    When we manage that we'll win those close games because it's those things that are killing us.  


I'm still worried about our left side defence too, especially with Armitage now out.  I can't help but think that if we'd given Tindall a contract he'd be going well outside Armitage at centre (his best postition) with Gill and Taufua as back up, but that ship sailed long ago - sorry to keep harping on but we left ourselves way too short of options in the outside backs.

I don't disagree. However the facts are we've come out the wrong side of every single "big/important" game, even the Cas game, if they had have had a goal kicker we'd have blown that as well. That's my worry. The big games are fine margins and we seem unable to know how to win these. Teams that wins things come out on the right end of those fine margins. Good teams don't. 

I've used Okunbor as an example. The Barrow game he was easily our biggest metre maker. Worked hard. Scored a try. Played well. But yet again he came up with crucial errors. Another dropped catch from a kick (if I remember rightly Barrow scored from it) and a dumb unforced offload in our own 20. Again it's been a pattern. York at home. Drop kicked on yorks final set. Catch it we win.Then just got run around from the scrum. Barrow at home. Again a howler.  Games at the top are/should be close affairs so I don't quite but the "we're only losing by 2 points" we should be looking at it as we're consistently losing by 2 points against anyone decent. 


Tonight's irrelevant as the opposition are poor. But next week will make or break our season.  If Noble hasn't found the answers next week then I don't see how he will going forward. He alluded to more loans again in the interview if Gill or Liu couldn't come back from Batley which I found a worry as they're rarely the answer. 

Think departures and injuries have left us weaker than last year and in some ways the year before too.   Losing Doro was a big blow.  Pele was a frustrating player at times but we miss his go forward and Scurr's been out injured a fair bit.  That's left us short of go forward.   The players we've recruited to replace Baitieri and Segeyaro haven't been as good either.  Losing Taufua has also made our left side a lot weaker defensively and meant having to play Armitage out of position.

So Noble has had his challenges, arguably more than EOC had.  

Appreciate the general point re Okunbor but on watching the replay, there is fair shout to say he was tackled in the air for that Barrow try. We could could certainly do with a little bit more luck from some of the 50/50 calls at times this year - but we can't control that and to be fair we still didn't deserve to win based on effort and desire.


Tonight kind of feels like a no win situation for the team. Hammer Hunslet and it's just Hunslet so they wont get any credit, make hard work of it they'll be rightly criticised. It would be something to just see the team stick to a game plan and demonstrate some discipline. I am sure one or two might have half an eye on York next week, but we need to focus on putting a few things right tonight in preparation for that game.

It's going to chuck it down this evening so I'm not expecting any champagne rugby.

A strange evening at Odsal as the Bulls eventually ran out comfortable winners, but the performance left plenty of questions unanswered.

Despite making five changes to the side that lost at Barrow last week, we again looked completely out of ideas in attack for much of the first half. A flat and error-strewn opening saw us go in just 6-0 ahead at the break — a scoreline met with boos and jeers from the frustrated home crowd.

Our ball retention and attacking structure were unbelievably poor at times, and while we showed flashes of flair and class in the second half to pull away, it did little to mask the overall mediocrity of the performance. We are still massively off the pace.

On a side note, Hunslet are one of the grubbiest sides we’ve come across in some time. Slowing the game down and constantly pushing the limits, but we still should have handled it far better. The hit on Holmes was an absolute disgrace.

With in-form York up next, the second-half scoreline flatters a display that remains deeply concerning. Big improvements needed, and fast.

Hope we haven't lost Holmes to HIA or injury, the late challenge was very deliberate and not good to see.

Hunslet were pretty hopeless and Bradford showed a few glimpses of quality but it was a largely poor quality game. Definitely struggling for some form right now and tonight's performance will not cut it at York next week.

Doro as expected ran through brick walls for us and was the best player on the pitch by some distance.