Sorry Red but you don't have to be a superfamily to find 1) writing off a young player after two games and 2) mocking a semi-pro and then trying to justify it by the colour of his boots as being barmpot behaviour that reflects badly on Bulls fans. By all means criticise, and plenty do in a reasonable fashion, and are responded to in a reasonable fashion. Eddie is rarely reasonable, and gets even less so when this is pointed out to him.

If your criticism is valid, you have nothing to worry about. The people who have a problem are those who wish to post irrational rants unchallenged. You're not one of these people so I honestly don't see why you don't like posting. Your choice in the end though, of course.

I don't see that Red.

There is one poster whose role in life seems to be to come along after the battle to bayonet the wounded, when not crying for attention and to be noticed, who fails to appreciate it is his attitude that draws the fire not his opinions - and who clearly attracts a different type of attention from that which he craves. And there are one or two of the "hang em high" brigade telling everyone what is wrong but without making practicable suggestions for how it might be fixed. Any fool can do that. And the odd remaining flat-earther who refuses to recognise the financial realities. (Not including you in any of those categories, btw).

But that does not mean even they have any less right to be heard or that their thoughts counts any less. If other posters elect to ignore their points of view, or take issue with them, that is equally their right?

FWIW, I would prefer you posted more on here. You don't use many words, but you tend to make the ones you do use count. We cannot have a meaningful debate without all shades of opinion being represented, and you are quite effective in cautioning people against getting carried away and at playing devil's advocate. Just my own opinion, mind - can't speak for others.

Eddie gets lambasted for the way he says things or for what he says?

What he says seems more and more to be proved right does it not? So people have a problem with his tone?

Or what?

I don't particularly dig Eddie's style but do enjoy his opinions, even if I disagree with him. But as debaser says, he has been proved right more than not. All I really care about is the good of the game, I would sacrifice any club for that, which is the angle I usually come from. Why someone as knowledgable as Red gets so affected by people's opinions is a mystery, his input is far too worthy to be lost to this board.

Detailed above. There is a difference between saying "even after two games, I don't think Briggs is going to make it" and "Briggs is mince, there is no chance of him making it at Bradford".

Similarly, I think disparaging a semi-pro for not being a world beater, two years after he last featured for us, is poor form. No one is asking that we must praise every Bulls player, but surely we can talk about them with a touch of civility?

Everyone can be proved right on some things with hindsight.

For example, I'm sure we were assured how crap our current coach would be, and how useless our team would be for the current season, and how depressed he was by the prospects for this season?

No? Well, what an amazing thing?

Beware selective memory.

Apparently Old Moore (of almanac fame) and mother Shipton can be shown to be correct about nearly everything. You just accept that the words they actually said were merely symbolic and then re-arrange it all to fit the circumstances. Simples!

Man, man, your time is sand, your ways are leaves upon the sea.
I am the eyes of Nostradamus, all your ways are known to me...

I just thought I'd jump in and agree with ME - Briggs is rubbish. im sure he's a very nice lad but he'll not make a super league player. he was competent in the first 40 minutes vs Leeds at MM (in a team that was playing very very well) and has been abysmal since. he's out of his depth at this level.

that said, I think the same about a fair few of our current crop of youngsters so I'm probably just biased, or clueless, or deluded, or blinded by my love of past players or something?

I'll go back to just reading the board anyway - Eddie generally says what I'm thinking anyway and he's completely flamed every time he says anything, despite the fact he is proved right more often than not.

The point is he didn't need hindsight. He and others called it right 3 years ago while the board and their apostles on here called it catastrophically wrong. To use your analogy Ferdinand Magellan didn't judge the earth to be round solely upon his return by some fortune. He made the call and is in the history books because he was correct.

Not. Look, without wanting to re-start WWIII, the general thrust of "Mac is crap, get him out, he's the problem" was one side of the camp. My own oft-maligned angle was, to sum up very briefly, is that McNamara is a good young coach; that while nobody is immune from criticism, and "should he go or should he stay" in the case of a coach of any team becomes academic if performances decline below a certain level as the coach WILL be sacked, the MAJORITY of the blame lay with the players. I said that because to my eyes, many of them, much of the time, were not putting it all in.

We now have Potter. Not much argument about his being a decent appointment. But, we have had too many shabby performances already. Although there are many other factors, and I don't want to join the simplistic camp, still to my eyes, many of the players, much of the time, were not putting it all in. Only the other day, we had another player hinting as much again (Whitehead, saying they "need to talk more" and "stop jumping out of the line leaving gaps"icon_wink.gif.

Now, I do not believe that either McNamara or Potter did or do coach them that way. And we have again this year read several times that the game plan was fine, but when they ran on to the pitch, the players didn't follow it.

Does the coach bear responsibility for not ensuring his players follow orders, game plans, etc? I suppose you couldn't argue otherwise. Certainly ultimate responsibility is his.

But it's funny, isn't it, that Potter is experiencing the same self-destructive habits.

Anyway, the continuing events on the field leave me convinced all the more that what we have is a player problem in the main. Is there a coach to solve it? Who knows. I would certainly be for Potter being given a proper chance - measured in seasons, not weeks or days - but parting company with McNamara has not proved to be the magic elixir that some claimed it would be. And so I would respectfully suggest that there has not been a lot of "proving right".

There is another angle, as well, and that is the signing and release of players. I don't know nor does anyone I suspect just how much or little input a coach has into signing any given player, and we know we don't have the Warrington Wizardry to magic up megabucks, but still I am not exactly doing cartwheels with signings like Sibbit and Jeffries.

Perhaps we should conclude that the signings made by previous and current coaches are not shall we say necessarily always what the coaches' first choice might have been, although once signed, again, any player should be given a fair chance. For example, being judged on a season not a handful of games.

I have no interest at all in other people thinking I am right, wrong or whatever. I say my piece and it is what it is. But if the question is, was it the coach, or more the players, then to me the evidence against the substantial part of the blame being with the players continues to mount.

Some might suggest that in fact there's nothing that wrong with the players that "a good coach" couldn't cure. But to me that argument fails because to make it, you have to argue that not only was McNamara first a bad coach, but now that Potter is, too. And this to me is where the 'dud coach' claims start to collapse, because Potter has clearly shown with his short track record that he is no dud.

At the end of the day, god himslef would have trouble trying to get the best out of the current squad in all honesty. I don't rate Potter as highly as some people on here but that is opinion, which i am entitled too, although i do respect his pedigree. However, Mick Potter is as good of a coach as Bradford can draw in the club's current predicament so we cannot complain. As far as briggs is concerned i think he has a tuch of Rikki Sherriffe about him. tries hard but just doesnt have the talent to make it at Super League level. He is small and maybe his attiutude is questionable, he's lack of gameplay when he was available for selection shows Potter's lack of faith and i can see him being sent away at the end of the year.

If you don't like something that somebody says then post back saying why you think the opposite, all posts are equal and this is a discussion not a superiority contest.

IMO the majority of the fault is never with the players. It might take time for a coach to get rid of the dross or bad eggs but a good coach will always come good. Some good coaches do lose the knack though. Players don't just not put the effort in without it being symptomatic of a greater malaise. Odd players will, granted.

What? Like them that have quirky personalities that hoard old newspapers and live alone with 50 cats?