Agree with this. When signing experience they need to do a job rather than wasting money on just a name. The lad we got from Leeds (Oledzki) has done more in two games than Lauaki did in 2 seasons

. Only thing Lauaki did really was one bit hit and two barnstorming runs in those 2 seasons. Whereas Oledzki offers us more minutes and more go-forward per drive.

That being said we are not winning the ruck and experience is needed in that respect.

But as mentioned before. Moore, Larroyer and a fit Ben Harrison would improve our pack massivley and give us a better chance of making yards, punching holes in defences and ultimately winning games.

Isn't Ben Harrison still at Warrington? I'm sure when they announced their squad numbers, they said he was still at the club but only wasn't given a number because they were expecting him to spend the season on loan (which turned out to be Leigh and never happened).

Yeah a loan deal may be on the cards, but people keep talking like he's a free agent. I don't think he is.

[iDavid Thorne - Talking to The Yorkshire Post, the man who helped turnaround the fortunes of stricken Premiership rugby side Wasps, said:

“The level of professionalism I was expecting from the RFL was the same as I’d expect from the RFU but there was disparity between that expectation and reality. They are in a difficult situation, though, and it’s not easy for them. The story broke of my interest as our group had agreed to purchase the assets of Bradford Bulls Northern Limited (in administration) from the administrators after the decision was made the club could no longer trade and importantly, after advising the RFL of our intention.

“Although all the staff are made redundant, you can still make an offer to the administrator for, in effect, the intellectual property – the name, the trophies, website – which can give you a competitive edge in the process later on.

“Initially there was no opposition from the RFL who were given the opportunity to veto the process, and Bradford Bulls Capital Limited was formed. A meeting was held with the players and staff on Thursday, January 5 at Odsal Stadium. Again, contrary to media reports, the RFL were aware of this meeting and there was an RFL staff member present for most of that meeting.
“But it became clear after committing to the acquisition, the RFL changed its position. The problem was I don’t think they understood what was really going on.”

Thorne’s consortium pulled out of that transaction[/i

The above report is why I think the relationship between Wood and our owners skewed the process, in my view there was only ever going to be one outcome from day one.

As for the reasons behind all this, its a choice of sheer incompetence or as suggested - something more sinister and/or rewarding (for some!)

For the life of me I cannot work out why anyone would up sticks to Bradford and take this mess on OR the RFL answer to the question about their previous liquidation for 24 million NZD was "A phone call to NZ cleared up the issue"!!

Fit and proper owner test my butt.

I remain suspicious and angry - but continue to support the poor sods left behind.

I support the academy, as it's good for the game of rugby league that clubs run them.

If I were the Bulls' owner, I'd question the value of an academy to a [ichampionship[/i club though. We, at substantial cost, bring them through the junior ranks and then will be out bid for our own juniors when they hit open age. You can't blame the kids; their pathway to being a top rugby player is blocked by the fact we are not in the top division, so clearly the lure of clubs like Huddersfield, who don't seem to have an academy, is obvious.

Maybe the RFL should say that the salary of players who came through your own academy aren't counted on the cap? That would, at least, be an incentive to those in SL who clearly do it on a shoestring. As it is, we spend a large amount bringing on players and we'll be lucky to get a season out of most of those lads, when they are still raw and rough around the edges, whilst the real benefit of our work then goes elsewhere.

I was going to raise this point on twitter a minute ago but thought better of publicly slating the new owners.

Andrew Chalmers told in a interview "its going to be a struggle"

Surely once again if the RFL had done their job and picked the right bidder they should have had adequate finance in place so it wasn't a struggle?

I'm not talking about a sugar daddy either but if someone came in and invested in the team we have either the biggest of second largest support in the league, if we were successful even at championship level we would improve on this bringing in more revenue.

For me it shouldn't be about cloth cutting when there is no cloth left to cut, it should be about investing in the business to make it return even a modest profit or break even.
I respect Lowes and Chalmers RL knowledge and previous careers, but if they don't have the money to get us off the ropes why were they given the club???
This is where the theory they are RFL patsies comes into its own.

Ok we are on a tight championship budget but the likes of Joseph, Foster, Burr, Kavanagh, Moss and Chissy aren't exactly Jonathan Thurston or Cooper Cronk, and would have taken a slight cut in wages to have a job for the year.

All the players you have mentioned HAVE got jobs for the year and there's probably only Joseph that will have taken a pay cut as he preferred part time.

Before you all jump on me, I'm not a hudds fan however wakey signed 4 of your academy, cas one, Wigan one and hull one, hudds didn't sign any of them, yes they took o'brien and mellor but hull kr took moss, sheff Chisholm Leigh Clare and burr

As gouge your own eyes out frustrating as it is and was seeing the squad been picked bare by other clubs,
The only people to blame are the previous owners...

Our home grown lads Mellor and O Brian are the hardest to take, especially to be 2nd choice at Huddersfield Eagles.

Probably all a load of cobblers but I was told (I know... huge sighs...) that allegedly, the RFL had told their chosen chums that 'they'd need to bide their time to get control of the club'. This was before Christmas. Before liquidation.

I've heard it from several unrelated people, but people who've been highly accurate with information before.

I suppose I am interested to know if anyone else heard this?

You'd have to assume it's not true because if it was, you'd have expected Cha-low to hit the ground running a little faster than it appears, with finances in place and a clear plan to stabilise and over-come the -12.

If that's the case it makes sense. It's in the RFL's best interests to keep a Bradford club up and running. They have obviously chosen a 'safe' pair of hands. Therefore they are in the firing line if it goes belly up again. Nigel Wood hates us, that is fact. But the RFL need us, at least until 2019!! But (sigh) from what I have been told, a 'backer' has already been involved a little bit.

Chalmers and Lowe have cut spending, brought in sponsors and made huges statements in;

Keeping the Academy and a lot of the lads.
Re-Signing Leigh Beattie and John Bastian.
Signing Geoff Toovey.

I firmly believe they are currently assessing where we are financially. And will need to see how many season ticket sales there has been, assess the income from merchandise sales and finally evaluate what sort of walk up support they can expect (hard to judge on 1st game) before they make any more big financial decisions. We are already on the lowest funding for the Cham. We finish anywhere higher for next season we already have more money than we currently do.

You've no evidence of that whatsoever. Is Neil Hudgell skint? Because i wonder what sort of club Hull KR would be now with £150k funding.

I don't get the mind set of some supporters. 4 weeks a go we had no club. Gone. Liquidated. Christ the owners even had to fork out just to be able to be called Bradford Bulls again. The same people kicking off saying we're not signing players x y & z are probably the same ones who topped VBFGs post list on the admin thread kicking off at Marc Green for killing our club.


Some fans seem to be forgetting a few points.


1. Liquidation - this happened. We had no club or players. So that enabled the likes of KR to offer Kavanagh, Moss etc better contracts than we could. Even if KR just matched our offer. Who would you sign for. KR or the Bulls on -12?

2. Budgets - i know we've had 3 admins and a liquidation but some fans seem to think budgets don't matter. I'd have loved to still see Alex Foster and Dane Chisholm play for us. But i'll have a guess that they were on a fair whack. If we can't afford their wages then we can't afford. That doesn't make Cha-Lo crap owners. These mystery billionaire owners people keep mentioning probably don't exist. I don't buy the RFL conspiracy rubbish. Looking at the.pretty poor SL atrendances at the weekend, the RFL want ateam who attracted 4k to their game after 3 admins and a liquidation to survive.

3. Player availability. At the start of the season nearly all players are signed up. Teams aren't even going to let their fringe players go at the beginning of the season.

4. Reputation - again its alright mentioing Joseph, Foster etc but our reputation is like mud at the moment. Players didn't get paid Decemeber wages. players want stability and our reputation is we don't provide that.

Im not a Cha-Lo apologetic. If in 2 months time we still haven't recruited some forwards then by all means criticise. The point im making is i don't know if they will be good for us. There appears to be a lot of experts who think they've sussed out how much money they have and that they're bad for the Bulls because they haven't brought decent expensive players that they want within 4 weeks of rebuilding the club from scratch.

I think the original plan to overcome the -12 was to have most of last year's squad still in harness at Odsal - or to be more accurate, the -12 was to prevent us having [iany great advantage[/i from[i still having[/i most of last year's squad.

Unfortunately reactions weren't fast enough to follow the changing circumstances, hence, due to sheer bloody mindedness at Rot Hall, we are where we are imo.