Was last season a successful one?

Mmm, I'd give qualified yes to that. I mean, whilst not remembering any hangovers from wild celebrations, we did negotiate a full season without going bust, and in fact we seem to have done well with financial backing. In general the club appears to be on a sounder financial footing than for some time. All pretty successful, I'd say.

On-field, we dropped divisions and entered our new place in life with a lot of new faces, leaving us with a fairly unsettled squad with a lot of the unknown about it. Our biggest competitors were also fully pro and had a decent quality, and maybe more importantly, settled team, so I'd have taken second position before the season started. I know it was [ionly[/i the second division but you can only beat what is in front of you, so again it's successfully negotiated, for me.

We did get second, and also managed a way through the eights and got into the final play-off game - which, imo, was something we hoped for, but which we were not favourites for. At the start of the season only the super optimistic would have expected a win in that game though, and Wakey, with all their off-field shenanigans tried hard to give us a chance, but at the final hurdle we failed to grasp it. So success tinged with disappointment.

My hope for next year is that everyone, including the coach, learns the lessons from last season. That would be another success!

Your post suggests that we [iought[/i to have beaten Wakefield and not to have done so means we failed. Surely, that can only be the case if the means by which we would be replacing them in the higher tier were fair and equitable, when in truth, they were demonstrably not so?

I would say that we did exceed expectations. At the start of the season I wouldn't have thought we'd be favourites to beat Leigh on their own ground to make the MPG, but that's exactly what we did. At the start of the season I wouldn't have thought there was any chance of thrashing a SL team in the playoffs, but we did. We put the millionaires of Salford to the sword.

You keep repeating "it was not a success" but omit that this is because the definition of "success" that you are using is a weird one, where only "promotion to SL" can be success, and anything else is failure.

I think the measure of a successful season is what I and others have explained, and clearly we did have one. Equally if you take the view that not being promoted means our season was a failure, then by your peculiar definition, you are right too, at least in your own head.



What a breathtaking non sequitur! Last season was what it was, and can be judged (must be judged) once it finished. Things that may or may not happen in the future will not retrospectively alter a single thing that we did or that happened in season 2015. It is what it was, and forever will be. Like the Norwegian Blue, it is finished.

None of the things you predict have either happened yet, but if they do, it won't retrospectively make us less successful than we were. and if they don't, it won't make us more successful than we were.

Nobody says Lowes is the world's perfect coach, but overall and with qualifications, think he did very well, and indeed achieved the main "must-do" - getting us to the MPG.

Whatever mistakes he (undoubtedly) made, and whatever failings he (undoubtedly) may have, he proved himself the best in the Championship, in his rookie season. That doesn't qualify (to a reasonable person) as being "incapable of the job".

I'm getting tired of this. Look, all the people who say" promotion=success, not getting promoted = failure" please leave the discussion.

We DID have a (very) successful season, which of course could have been better, and yes it was spoiled by failing to beat a vulnerable Wakefield on the day. Does that draw a thick black marker pen over everything else we achieved on and off the field in 2015? I think not. If you think yes, then great, but why are you in the discussion, if you genuinely believe that all those things are totally irrelevant to the question of to what extent we had a successful season?

I have ghost-written a book

The Bulls Season 2015 Review
by mystic eddie and maislebugs

Didn't get promotion.
The End.

You seem prepared to totally ignore a raft of decisions vis a vis signings and selection. I'm not talking about the MPG in isolation but over the whole season key areas were in dire need of back up and key decisions were clearly not working. We signed the wrong players when better options were available, played props who even the coach thought unworthy of being on the pitch and let's not start on the 1 hooker f^£k up. None of this had anything to do with an unequal/unfair comp. Haifax weren't complaining about finances when a well drilled, energetic part time team beat us twice. We were lucky to beat Batley and Dewsbury.

By your analysis we are simply unable to judge because Wakefield may have spent/recieved more money, even though they also survived what looked like internal meltdown with players getting drunk, getting sacked, walking out or a combination of all 3. Down this route lies Mcnamaraland. A place where irrespective of what's on the pitch we have suffer deconstructions into it's tiniest parts and then herald the few positives (focus on youth???)

And finally, here's the bigger problem and the real point of this discussion. We seem divided into roughly two camps. The first, you, FA, Blotto finding positives out of the teams efforts on the basis that promotion is not really possible.

The 2nd that promotion was possible but that Lowes messed it up and has demonstrated that he is extremely unlikley to achieve promotion under what promises to be tougher circumstances. Sorry FA, this is the crux of the analysis on our season. What can we take from it going forward? I think on this we agree.

The club needs to face up to one key issue here. No matter your perspective on what happened last year we're 100% united in our expectation that we are NOT getting promoted next year either.

What are we going to say about crowds, financial stability etc in this context? They had one option to sell next season and they missed it.

Ah, so you haven't actually read my posts on the subject, then. Fair enough. To recap
Indeed. I also agree very much with the first proposition (that promotion is not really possible - and only some very unlikely circumstances conspired to make it actually doable this year)

But I do feel that despite the well-known failings and strange traits, in achieving what he did, Lowes has done enough to warrant another season, if the insiders - i.e. Green & Co., who know more than we do - also concur - which they seem to - and given that I fear promotion in a fair fight is impossible, it doesn't really matter who is the coach. But if things do go pear shaped as 2016 wends its weary way then of course Lowes would become more vulnerable - if there was anyone both better and available.

But I'm afraid that I hold no optimism for 2016, and do not believe we can get promotion even if we had a coaching team of Mal Reilly, David Waite and Jesus Christ. Unless another SL team implodes, or the RFL makes some changes to the rules.

I don't see any changes on the horizon. I do see the drawbacks of the Super 8 system now we have experienced it (mainly, panic buying/loans; the inability of the bottom club in SL or the top club in Championship to properly plan/sign for the next season; and above all, the now proven fact that the £1m extra salary cap means all things being equal no Championship team will ever win the MPG.

I can see the solution. This would be that the team finishing top of the regular season gets an automatic promotion and the SL bottom club gets relegated. The remaining Super 8s or Super 6s would make it possible, if only in theory, for 2 Championship clubs to go up.

This would mean a team like Wakey who frankly deserved to get relegated for their abject year would do so. It might also mean that coaches such as Lowes would have to work the regular season on an "every minute matters" basis and not settle for just a top 4 spot. But i can't ever imagine the Sl clubs voting for auto relegation. Which leaves us with a club having the misfortune to go bust, which you can't rule out, but which I certainly don't wish on anyone.

More selective points.

Tell me, FA. (Nice and simply now without your usual spin please)

Did you think that we would get 50+ put past us in the play-offs by the part-timers of Halifax?

Yes, I thought we might, when we announced a weak side and Lowes made no secret we were treating the game as an inconvenience to be got out of the way.

No I'm sorry, he didn't JUST mess up the MPG. Throughout a season in which you repeatedly stated that all that mattered was the end game, Lowes decision making demonstrated what was likely to happen in that end game.

It's not sustainable to state that you were right up to the point where Lowes got it wrong when in actual fact Lowes was getting wrong throughout the year, while you were saying in effect, it didn't matter. Similarly repeatedly stating 'promotion is impossible' right up and including the moment when MPG demonstrated it was, and had always been possible.

I'm sorry what? You expected to concede 50 points against a part time team? Even with the changes we shouldn't have conceded 50 points and to say we should is an insult to the professionals who played in that game. Each player who played that day had started during the season, and was deemed worthy at that point of a starting place.

I don't believe anybody walked into that game expecting to concede over 50.

Lowes' coaching record was poor before he was signed and those who aren't blinkered by his playing record (and we're all agreed he was a legend) have said this from day one.

If the team had played like they meant it right throughout the season and with a more intelligent approach to team selection we'd be back in Super League now.

It's a closed book on promotion next year. It is NOT going to happen with him in charge, irrespective of external factors.

No and I never said I did.

It would be, but nobody is saying that we should have.

Indisputably. And despite being a weakened team, it should have had enough to beat a team of part-timers, at home. Nobody is disputing any of this.

Neither do I. But, once things started to go one way in the second half, I would bet nobody was surprised whatsoever that we ended up shipping 50, just because we have a lot of form for giving up and shipping 50 when the going gets tough. Which is why I expected we "might". Well founded pessimism, you could call it, I went to that game with a bad feeling, the players involved have no excuse at all but sadly I've seen us ship 50 a million times in recent years so it's nowt fresh.

All that mattered WAS the MPG. But here I am, stuck in the middle of you to the left of me, mystic eddie to the right, to him it was just a one-game season and nothing else but promotion mattered, to you we had to win every game in style.

The truth is in between. We needed to start steadily, and build to peak at the business end. That is true for all teams in such a league setup, and it is even more true for a scratch side who half of them didn't even know each other's names.

I have no clue how Lowes "decision making" could have in any way demonstrated what happened in the MPG but seeing as you clearly did see what was going to happen, can you just link to where you posted it? Or did you keep it to yourself?


Stop missing the point.
a) I don't maintain Lowes was perfect or never blundered, just that he achieved the specific achievable goal, being in the MPG.
b) You must realise that had Wakey not been severely disrupted then they would have stuffed us, like they did earlier in the Super 8s when Smith could have famously played in a dinner jacket. And I don't mean promotion is "impossible", like tigertot buying a round, I say there is no chance unless a SL team has a meltdown. Which, as a Bradford fan, I would hardly hold "impossible".

You're so negative. You should be thinking positive, that it was ONLY 50+