[url=http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/sport/sportbulls/9024258.Walker___s_time_at_Bradford_Bulls_could_be_running_out/Walker playing for future[/url

On Walker, it seems he thinks he might be done with us, three months out, only on a 12 month contract, it would be very hard to justify a new deal. Which the man himself is all too aware of, its a shame the peak of his career has been blighted by these injuries. I wonder if we've already seen the last of Chev in a Bulls shirt?

The glass is definitely empty over in your court!!!

I don't understand how people can be talking about Herbert being a poor half back and can't create anything! In the "creativity" stats on the Superleague site he isn't far behind Rangi Chase who has played 2 more games and has been playing in the form team for majority of this season!

He has nobody in the side who knows how to be a dummy runner without giving a penalty away, half of them cant catch a ball cause they have cows tits for hands and the morale in the club is feeling worse than last year!! He has had zero lack of opportunity to form a decent partnership with any other half back and some people are expecting the kid to carry our team through the season! His biggest downfall is his kicking!

Not a lot of point comparing our lot with who would or would not get in the side of the likes of Wire, unless we can somehow get one of those salary cap booster tokens they seem to have so we can afford players who COULD?

Whilst you're right to a point Adey, we also need to spend the money we do have better IMO. We have cap space this year we have not spent, so its not all about not having the funds even if we don't have access to "extras". We've not spent what we have available by all acos so we could have adjusted the signings to bring in a higher caliber player had we been able to identify and attract such a beast before we needed to start worrying about extras.

FWIW at the time I could see the logic in most, not all mind, of the signings, for instance there was not a grat deal of choice availble at half back when we officially found we needed one, so Briggs and Herbert were a calulated gamble at the time that seemed a decent shot. But as a group its not yet worked, but we've not yet been able to call on the whole group which doesn't help when attempting these autopsies.

I'm never sure about this "we have cap space" bit. So we've not spent up to what we could have on the cap rules but does that mean we had money available to spend on cap items? We've got a limited amount of revenue that must also be spent on non-cap things but still gets included in calculating the cap limit. Or am I not understanding this?

Look towards NEXT year! just wait till this season ends first there is still a lot of fotty left to play before deciding who should go and who stays

I'm just going on the fact we were told the full cap amount was available to Potter to spend on players and we've not spent it all (at least we hadn't before signing BJ, don't know whats left now). So thats a definiate amount set for the playing staff that for one reason or another we've not used, so worrying about spending over this by extra methods seems redundant to me. If you've not filled your petrol tank up whats the point worrying about how to fill up a jerry can with extra petrol?

The reasons for not spending it, and if its being spent on no cap items due to revenue issues, is another discussion I suspect, I'm only going on what the club said about the resources available for the playing staff.

Cheers, that makes more sense then. Was that said at the fan forum?

Players are important obviously but good backroom staff can make the difference between average and good players. I wouldn't have minded if we were spending some money on improving the coaching and fitness side at the expense of some player spending power.

Do we not have to hold back some cap space in case people like Addy, Olbison etc go over their games played limit and count on the cap? Maybe not Addy I guess after his lay off but these were mentioned by Hood in one of the programs.

Fair summation that Duckman - and a lot more balanced than some of the histrionics we see on here - especially from those who professed to be much happier with the squad or the coaching team at the start of the season but now say they knew it/they would be poor...

If we could ever get a decent, settled squad of the best players out on the park for a few games then we might be better able to judge. At the moment, whilst it is easy to observe the symptoms, it is harder to determine causes. Injuries have clearly paid a big part in what we have seen, but I doubt there are many fans now ascribe everything to just that. You only have to look at how e.g Wakey coped with their injury crisis last season to find the comparison striking?

I keep, wondering how much we might have been relying on signing Pryce back for this season, and how disruptive to the plans (as well as explaining the cap shortfall) not managing to sign him has proved? It DID seem pretty clear he was a maijor target?

Jockabull - no. the cap is fixed at £1.65m, regardless of revenue. The 50% of revenue cap was removed some years ago. We were told thatb the club would make the full cap available to the head coach, so either that remains the case and we have just not found the players to spend it on (some will have gone on Jeffries, which I hope may prove a more enlightened sihning than many imagine), or the finances have again deteriorated so that we are unable now to spend the full cap. If it is the latter then we have a big problem indeed. At present I am convincing myslef it must be the former.

Players have a salary cap value set at the start of the season, so I'd assume that we'd not have to keep cap space back for the circumstances you described. Addy and Olbison They were in the 25 so they always counted on the cap. I'd have to have another look at the Rules to remind myself how the likes of Burgess and Bateman are treated.

You DO seem to be able to acquire Cap Power-Booster tokens from somewhere, if you have the money. However, we don't seem to have found out from where yet.

I've posted something similar on another thread but it bears repeating here. One of the biggest problems with recruitment was caused by Matt Orford not being honest about his intentions when he went back to Australia in the middle of last year. I don't think we should underestimate the impact of this, if only he'd said he wanted to leave and negotiated his departure properly, both him and the club would have been in a better position to sort out the start of the current season. Incidentally, I'd suspect that is a fair part of the reason why we still have/had cap money available.

As it was, he was still on the Bull's books until very late in the day, which made it difficult/impossible for Potter to sign a new scrum half earlier in the day when there might well have been more unsigned halves available. This isn't to knock Herbert though, who while he hasn't come in an been a rip roaring success, hasn't been the damp squib many are trying to paint him as either. Without a regular partner and behind a depleted pack which has never really set much of a platform, he's been OK, but not outstanding. Maybe it would be unfair to expect more.

I'd agree that I would have liked to see some bigger names too. Though I accept it was never going to be as easy to attract top players as it used to be when we were lording it at the top end of the league. Hopefully, in the remainder of this year, the coach will be able to instil some confidence (maybe our biggest weakness?) into the side, and maybe have some better luck on the injury front (it must be a three year injury jinx by now) and we can get into the play-offs, or at least look as if we might do next season. Maybe we'd be a bigger attraction to players if we did. This time Mick will be able to spend all his working hours on the recruitment for next year, which should be an advantage too.

Who? Come on now, name names and show us all proof who did this.

Otherwise you will be shown up to be a liar. Such disappointing behaviour from such an upstanding member of the board.

www.thisishullandeastriding.co.u ... ticle.html Dobson and Pryce would a very good half back pairing and both have been coached by Potter before. Saints have been linked Waterhouse and Bryce Gibbs but apparently have no quota/non fed spot. This is the type of player we should move for.

www.thisishullandeastriding.co.u ... ticle.html Dobson and Pryce would a very good half back pairing and both have been coached by Potter before. Saints have been linked Waterhouse and Bryce Gibbs but apparently have no quota/non fed spot. This is the type of player we should move for.

How are we meant to look positive? With the were watching week in week out.

Kearney would be top of my keep list every day of the week - he was playing out of his skin before the injury. i'd be more than happy to keep him at 6 if we cannot sign Pryce or AN other, but definitely at fullback.
Platt's a decent defender and always put in the effort, I'd retain him, but we are missing a 'strike' centre I feel, someone like Hape was.
Ah Van I think has potential, we don't seem to be using width much in open play at the moment though.
Royston I like as a utility back, keep him on.
the forwards are half decent, Lynch, Scruton, Hargreaves, L'Estrange, Diskin, Langley, Elima would all be in my team.

I'm not sure about Herbert, Ainscough (puts in the effort but is he good enough? maybe if theres no one else) Walker (possible second row squad player, not at centre though) Raynor (again if theres no one else, then keep him on) Whitehead, Donaldson, Kopczak, Burgess, Olbison, Bateman I'm not sure.

the rest can pretty much go for me.

Underestimation there I think. For me, you can split the team into two divisions fairly easily; forwards and backs in terms of 'good enough' or not.

The pack at full strength is as good as any in Super League. Seriously, it is. You just can't argue with:

Lynch, Scruton, Hargreaves, Kopzcak, Burgess
L'Estrange and Diskin
Langley, Donaldson, Whitehead, Elima, Addy, Olbison

The strength in depth is there without doubt, but, it always has been.

The problem is the backline, there's no class out wide and the halves are struggling. To be honest, from what I've seen so far, I aren't overly impressed with most of our backline acquisitions (apart from Royston). All of them have mitigating circumstances in whether they're good enough. When you take Kearney out of the backline too, we're a hell of alot worse.

Basically, the forwards are amongst the top three or four packs in Super League. The backline is amongst the worst three or four. As eluded to, a strike centre is what is needed, maybe even two.

The pack is nowhere near amongst top 3 or 4, Aaron.

Wigan, Saints, Giants, Wolves, Leeds, even Hull maybe all have better packs of forwards than ours IMO.

The fact that we dont have a blockbusting prop that punches holes through defences speaks volumes to me.

When have our pack dominated another team? If the pack was do dominant, Herbert would have had lots more room to work, and let's be honest, he hasn't.

Our players in many ways are a bit too similar in the pack, even Scruton isn't a major go-forward player. His big impact seems to come in defence with big hits. Rarely do you see one of the guys hit the ball at full pelt and scatter defences or cause havoc in the defensive line.

OK, maybe top three or four could be an overestimation. But certainly better than the position where we are now.

If our backline was as good as our pack, we'd be in damn sight better position.

With the ball they are utterly average and in defence this is the worst Bradford pack I can ever remember. 5 of the forwards you mention are 21 or under and the rest are frankly ordinary.

[url=http://bradfordbulls.wordpress.com/2011/05/13/bullpens-midway-bulls-assessment/My mid-season assessment[/url

Doesn't include who I'd retain and release FWIW, there's still plenty of time to go for opinions to change and be formed yet.

Fully fit I'd say the starting pack is up there. I'm not sure the subs and beyond are as good as others in the top 4 or 5 though.

the bench lacks impact although I would argue that Burgess brings a bit of that with him now.

Fully fit I'd say the pack would, more or less, hold its own, but would still lack the sort of, dare I say Sam Burgess type, who scatters the opposition. Young Tom looks promising, but is still inexperienced, even more so than some of the other young players who keep coming in as 'back up' for the injured players.

They're not helped by having to come into a misfiring squad like we have at the moment, but given increased gametime alongside the more experienced pros (if we can keep them fit

) to help their development there's no reason to think they won't come into the first team in their own right over the next year or so and personally I'd like to see them be given the chance.

In general I'd go along with those who suggest the backs are where we struggle most and that is where I'd spend most on recruitment next season. It's also the backs where we don't seem to be bringing the academy players through at the moment, so recruiting there has less of an impact.

I'd agree with all that. The halfbacks and backs are a priority along with one tough forward who can break the line.

Shame we lost our most promising home produced backs to Warrington and Hudders, here's hoping we keep any more that come through.

I'm having trials with Harlequins soon, if i get in I'm demanding a move to Bradford for some game time. Me and Platty in centres!