Firstly congratulations to Huddersfield I thought they showed once again that they will be a very tough side to beat this year. Defensively they are rock solid and we just didn't have enough to break them down today.

I thought we looked disjointed and it is clear it will take some time for our new halfbacks to gel with the rest of the team. It didn't help that Kearney had a nightmare and pretty much everything he did seem to go wrong! I certainly don't think much of his short kicking game but he needs to work on it because we need a 2nd option to Orford. But he has looked good in pre season so I won't be writing off his stand off credentials just yet.

Plenty to work on and the timings and understanding will need time, unfortunately we don't have much of it with another very tough game coming up next!

Positive- I thought Sheriffe had one of his best games in a Bulls shirt and Langley worked his socks off.

Disappointed with the performance, but not worried.

Fair few positives to take from the match, Reardon looks good and Sheriffe is doing what he said with improving, however defence down his side was poor (not entirely Rikki's fault). We were very well disciplined, something Huddersfield weren't, they did the same as last season, went in late on the kicker, especially Orford.

Defence improved in the second half, although I was worried about Sykes & Sheriffe's side in the first half. Langley and Kearney's effort was excellent. L'Estrange and Orford din't do as well as I'd expected, but it's the first match and something to build on.

Donaldson did well again, was excellent in defence. Menzies seemed a little quiet, btu again, only the first game.

The only worry I'd have if I were Macca would be the fact that we didn't look very threatening close to the line, which is the opposite of what we shoed at Craven Park. Again though, only the first game in soggy conditions, and i'm sure we'll improve on that.

Also, Halley needs to try and hit the defensive line with speed, he stopped before the defender on numerous occasions, but I suppose 1st SL game of the season the bodies still need to adjust to the strain week in week out.

I was quite encouraged. For long spells we looked the better side and made very good metres up the middle and we won a lot of collisions. In large parts our defence was excellent and much more aggressive than last year.

The problems were the errors and the lack of options in attack. It is not good enough to buy two excellent halves and then say: 'Go on then, create some chances'.

We will play worse than that and win this year. And Sherriffe was very good.

As usual after getting back from a game, I can't be bothered reading 12 pages of posts, so I'll just put my own thoughts.

NEGATIVES

Last Tackle options. I don't think the kicks were that bad, but it would be nice if anyone else looked like they had a clue what was happening and/or could be @rsed chasing it. WAY too often the fullback or winger was able to just very easily stand and wait for the bomb with no pressure whatsoever.

The team clearly aren't used to playing with each other yet. Some passes (especially from Ox) were clearly just mistimed.

WAY too many unforced errors.

Reardon will be blamed for the first two tries. Personally, I didn't think it was all his fault, as he had no help quite a few times and was left to defend against numerous men on his own.


POSITIVES

With the exception of his knock on (which let's be honest, he does at least one every single game), I thought Paul Sykes played very well tonight. His defence showed a massive improvement and he made numerous very good tackles. He also looked good with ball in hand. If he plays like that every week, I'm more than happy for him to be first choice.

Rikki Sheriffe's run in the second half was awesome. Where that came from, I have no idea. But it was the first thing in the game I enjoyed thoroughly.

I do think that a lot of the problems tonight are fixable with a bit of time playing together. Let's hope that's not too long though.

He looked one of our few attacking threats, and he chased back to tackle on two occasions. Nowhere near a nightmare imo. Nero didn't do too well for mine.

I think Kearney was the Bulls main attacking spark tonight and his partnership with Orford will get better when the decks are dry,i just think your bench was'nt good enough.

I don't agree mate. He put in some poor kicks (some were just not read by his teammates but some went straight to the opposition). I not saying he won't be a good player for us because he has looked good in pre season. Tonight he had a poor game though IMO.

Orford created the first two tries which is ultimately what wins games.

Oh, I never realised.

Have you realized that your "PMA" won't make us win yet?

I think that's unfair.

Reardon, Scruton, Lynch, Sheriffe, Kearney, Sykes, Orford, Langley and Hall all had the effort there, effort isn't the problem, we just need more time to gel and we need to cut out the errors.

No it's not. Some players put a lot of effort in, but none of them wanted it badly enough otherwise they would have busted their balls. Lacklustre at times.

Time to gel and dry tracks are excuses.

The team have trained with each other for 3 months nearly and good players don't need firm grounds to perform.

We'll see where we are in the next few weeks. My bet it will be very similar to last season.

Nothing like having faith and confidence!


It's the first match FFS, we have a new spine of the team basically, give it time.


Btw, would you rather us be posting cricket scores now or in august/september/october?

Probably had too much confidence like a lot of Bull fans did around the ground going into this match.

It looks like as expected our 3/4 line will be where we fail. Huddersfield got plenty of yards through them.

We seemed to have not many attacking options given that they were down to 12 men for 20 mins.

Was i the only one thinking.. We miss a burgess..

Orford has a touch of class, as does kearney. There's no way Kearney is a stand off to me though. Didn't see much of hall.

Not very happy as i think the first game for us needed to be a good result with Saints next week.

How many weeks before people call for macca's head? Might start tonight