It's strange. It might have been the equivalent of WWII Blitz bunker spirit, but Bongser seems to recall a lot more positivity (and more posters - but the latter's the same everywhere) on this forum during the dark days of the Admin 3 / Liquidation thread - all 4 thousand pages of it.

On that topic, what did become of the tea lady?

The danger that The Bulls (and, for now, generously proportioned Nige) are facing is people getting out of the habit of attending.

Bongser spent a dozen years from the early 90s, trouping about the Home Counties where the pubs wouldn't show RL on the box as a matter of principle. When he finally settled back in the North, it was in South Manchester with a young family and a time-demanding (now ex-) wife. Bongser was out of the habit of attending Leigh games and the club lost (not through their own fault) about 20 years of one man's custom.

Bulls need a new coach in place now rather than later, one who is supported (from above) to plan for next year before more get out of the habit of going.

Agreed. I think they’ve been allowed to play what they see. But the dropped balls, we just gave York ball after ball. I don’t think it was that bad. Effort was there, we scrambled until the 80th minute in defence. We created enough opportunities to win that game and blew them all. We gifted York 2 or 3 opportunities and they were taken. Fitness didn’t seem to drop off in that game, even though we did the majority of defending. Completion rate must have been below 70% .
A big concern was that for the 2nd game in a row there must have been less than 2000 there.

]

Exactly this

Bulls: Our pitch is too narrow to play expansive rugby
Also Bulls: Is seven times in on game a record for going into touch?

My take on the game...
Positives.
They held us up over the line at least 8 times
Patton and Lilley put tremendous shifts in it's just their timing is way off having been on 'drop off' duty all season
Brad England was immense
Some of the team looked fitter
Had we had Millar in the wing we'd have doubled our try tally
Wallace and Butler looked reasonably class before being injured

Negatives
Walker
Crossley
Having both of the above on the park together.
Stood watching each other when the ball went to ground costing a try
The usual suspects were blowing out of the wrong end after 60 mins causing the usual collapse. (See Walker and Crossley)
Anyone breaking the line is on their own.

It was more entertaining to watch than earlier games but it ws probably one of the most stop/start games I've ever seen

Pretty much all the games are like that now. The 6 again rule is ruining the game. Teams are deliberately interfering early in the tackle count as the "penalty" is of no disadvantage. You get penalised more for kicking the ball dead.

The NRL have re-introduced penalties for ruck interference in the 20m area and it's helped greatly. Why we haven't done the same is anyone's guess. I know we're a few years behind the Aussies but this is a no brainer, we could just do it now and it'd improve the game.

I don't think I am amazed by anything in RL anymore sadly.

Brad England would have been my MoM. He ran his blood to water, seemed to be in every tackle and made a decent break... a break so good in fact the rest of his team mates stopped what they were doing to admire his work.

I reckon the jounalist was in Australia too...

I can see it's going to take time to adapt to a new more expansive gameplan given that we've played up the jumper stuff for ages. It'd also be good to see us try the odd offload as the opposition always kill us with these yet we manage about one a game.

This all depends on us being fit enough but it should be easy to lose the flab (just eat healthily). I'd be interested to see if this happens over the coming weeks.

I thought individually we worked hard, particularly in goal line defence but as a team in possession our work off the ball is non-existent. No runners, no options, not following or at times even looking at the play. On our left edge is so flat Gill is often in front of Kear.

Lilley and England tried to get the ball out but nobody was watching. We're so slow at the ruck, Doyle needs a coach to really get a grip of him because he's playing at the pace of Crossley.

At the pre-match press briefing Dunning was asked what he was looking for to improve.
"Energy levels"......
How can such a state of affairs been allowed to happen?

Well at least Dunning has acknowledged it's an issue which is a small step forward. Obviously things were allowed to drift for the past few years. I've no doubt that with a reset of attitude and fitness that this side is capable of much better. Whether Dunning is the man to make it happen we shall see but TBH I didn't expect a win versus York. It's incremental improvements I'll hope to see over the coming weeks.

We need a few players to start leading by example.

The whinges about the pitch being too narrow don't really wash if we're not supporting the ball carrier or making dummy runs - how else do you create space? Just passing down a flat, slow moving line and trying to barge over isn't going to work. God knows we've tried that approach all season so it must be obvious.

Just watched the 'highlights' Crossley and Baldwinsons attempt on OHagen looks even more pathetic when you watch it back. Hallas on Kirmond was just as embarrasing.

When I see Walker, Crossley and Scurr running on their own, allowing defences to put 3 men to them, hold them, clamp the ball, I just think what a thankless task. All 3 of them have shown a nice offload but get precisely zero help. Lilley tries his heart out and often gets his nose through the line but there's nobody, running near him. On the occasions Doyle jumps out of dummy half he shimmies and dummies but again no runners so defenders have no decision to make. It's utterly hopeless.

Indeed. They don't play as a team. With the pitch being the disgrace it is the players need support runners more than ever to create space and keep defenders off the ball carrier - this is basic stuff. It's no wonder the PTB is so slow on a small pitch anyway but we don't help ourselves.