Official from the Bulls:

"Please note that the Bulls official attendance for the game against Leeds Rhinos was 13,269 and NOT 11,995 as reported on some websites and in some newspapers. Can you please amend your records accordingly and, as this is the second time this has happened in the past few weeks, in future can you please wait for the crowd figure to be given at the Media Conference following the game."

Thank God I, and pretty well most posters on here, do not have the misfortune to live on Planet Eddie. Where the inhabitants appear to spend most of their miserable lives catching people doing things wrong, and finding fault in everything, and looking at everything in the most miserable light possible.

It must be a very depressing place indeed.

What was wrong with that post then?

It seems that I am damned if I do and damned if I don't. My take on the game is how I saw it and if people do not agree with it then fair enough, but to continually say that I live in a depressing place is a bit unfair, especially when I have battled depression for years.

FA said that we were weakened, so were Leeds, therefore using that as a reason for defeat is a bit rich IMO. However, it must just be cos I am depressed.

Leeds have far better resources for dealing with absences than we do.

Langley, Orford and Kearney would probably be the first 3 names on the team sheet every week; they were a big miss for sure. In addition, we do not have the luxury of depth to adequately cover such big gaps.

If we had less than 14000 yesterday how on earth did we fit 21k a few years ago the whinos???

That was at the height of heroin chic.

I was definately thinner.

Nothing to do with heroin I must add.

"Some may argue"? Maybe, but not rational people. Webb was replaced by Lee Smith which is hardly making a hole. Burrow?! the McGuire-Sinfield halfback pairing is one which many Rhinos fans prefer, and is a top combination of players with substantial international experience of playing halfback, so only a total rugby ignoramus would compare the absence of Burrow with the absence of Kearney and Orford. Even you don't actually make the comparison - you just say "some" "may" argue.

Missing packmen is par for the course, and in terms of importance to the team, you could say the absence of Langley and Peacock cancelled each other out, but Leeds have a bigger and far more expensive squad to cover such absentees than we do, plus Langley has been our stand-out forward before getting injured, something you couldn't say about either Peacock or esp. Lauiti'iti. However the point most can grasp, if not you, is the key importance of Orford, Kearney and Langley as a trio in what the Bulls do.

13,269

I thought this was the biggest derby in super league....

We can only call it how we see it, though, and surely you can see just how negative and miserable your take on things so often comes across? My comments were aimed at the generality of your posts since Sunday afternoon, not just that specific one - although it WAS prompted by your negative response to a reasonably balanced post from another poster.

You very bravely came out a few months ago and admitted to suffering from depression - which, contrary to what too many folk say, IS an illness and is not to be lightly dismissed; and I'll argue very strongly with anyone who says otherwise, and will not yield. And yes, I have formed the opinion that this maybe reflects in your posts - although of late far less so, until just very recently. Maybe my words were chosen in some exasperation, and maybe they might help you to see that? Because surely being so down about the club you profess to think a great deal about is not doing you any good either?

Back to topic - well, to the "our absences were worse than your absences" sub-topic anyway - I see that Sadler said in his rag today that he thought our absences DID hurt us far more than Leeds', and our players out on the park will likely be costing somewhat less than Leeds'. And that in the end money talks, and he implied quite clearly that money - and spending power - made the real difference. He finished by saying whatever Maguire is getting paid, he is worth every penny. Buy hey ho, that's just an opinion too.

The thing I find unforgivable is when the team has performed heroics and done bloody well, in very many respects, and been very unfortunate in many other respects, yet someone deliberately chooses to talk about the worst things, the whole worst things and nothing but the worst things, and exaggerate those to boot. Mistakes or no, my team bust a gut for me yesterday, and I appreciated it. I am truly ashamed that any fan would choose to ignore all the good stuff on show.

think someone said average before this game was 8600ish over 6 home games. so using the 13,269 figure for leeds games our average increases to about 9300ish. at least its heading in right direction and we still have some of better supported away teams to visit like hull and wire

edit: just worked it out using attendance figures on SL site and accurate figure is 9276.

We could be really cheeky and include the murrayfield game, which was classed as a home game for us, which pushes our average upto 11,446 but that would be obviously massaging the figures. Although it does raise an interesting point. average home attendance is one of criteria RFL use for awarding franchise points. So presumably they just go on the actual home fixtures and disregard the magic weekend fixture when calculating the average? I know this seems like stating the obvious but nothing would surprise me when it comes to RFL and it also raises the question as to why they bother designating one of the teams in each magic game as the 'home' team.

I wonder how many were not counted due to not having their cards scanned by the muppets in the turnstile booths?

Neither mine nor my son's appeared to be scanned correctly. The scanner was pointed at my card but not at the barcode on it and my son's card was "scanned" on the reverse side!!

would have thought they have a counter on the turnstyle itself to count attendances. Same system they've used for years. They'll no doubt have the season card attendances in electronic form too but they'd still have to add it onto figure for pay on the gate so I suspect they just do it all off the turnstyle counter.