It's looking increasingly like a write off season once again... so disappointing. A massive blow given all the hard work and positivity in pre season.

Potter should be getting much better performances out of this bunch, but we still have too many ordinary players to compete with the likes of Wire. So depressing once again!

Adey you appear to have a good background knowledge of the state of affairs of the Warrington Club, I will add a few more facts to help you out. Firstly I agree havng a 'fan' and major shareholder who is willing to finance the club has helped immensly over the past decade or so but it it hasn't been plain sailing.

Warrington were in financial trouble and if you can remember had to sell 2 of the biggest names in the game literally to survive, these being Harris and Sculthorpe. The proceeds from that helped us out for a while, then we had a loan from Warrington Council of about £250,000, the council now own the ground at Wilderspool. These were bad times at the Wire, we made some high profile signings but still were a mid to lower table team.

The turnaround of course started with the appt of the great late Peter Deakin and Simon Moran. The plans for the new ground took what seemed an eternity especially with the public inquiry, but were successful and as you say benefited from Tesco funding the build of the HJ.

We were fortunate to move into the HJ following our first play off appearence so hopes were high. It didn't happen overnight though we made a few signings (which you could say were due to S Moran) but still were inconsistent. A few play off places came then we had a bad spell leading in Paul Cullen leaving and Jimmy Lowes being appointed head coach. I think the rest is up to date appt of Tony Smith who has now brought success to the club and backroom staff to support him.

As a fan of the wire for nearly 40 years, I have waited a long time for success. Watching in envy at the Bulls/Saints/Wigan and Leeds lift all the trophies over the years. I agree we have been fortunate with the stadium development and to have Simon Moran on board.

Not having full knowledge of your history, can you tell me how your club were financed/backed during your glory years in sl. Didn't you have a wealthy backer? In your opinion where and when did it all start to go wrong at the Bulls?

not too sure why we cant compete with the Warrington players ...


they have the same salary cap as us so our lazy players must be on a similar wage structure to them!

So why cant we go out and get this type of player on contract?

yes i know im being idealistic .. its not a level playing field. Other clubs play it clever .. the foreign clubs London/wales/france basically have a free hand in getting as many quality imports as they want! where we are left with "average squad players/team members!"

This has to be a 3 year plan ... during the 3 years we have to develop our "cheap" juniors until they are at a higher level .. then we can hopefully fill the squad with more expensive and more quality players.

sorry the likes of Sibbet, Sykes, Herbert etc etc are only good enough to be squad members .... if that!

We need to look at the bigger picture .. we are hopefully a developing club .. we've fallen a hell of a long way and recovery its not going to happen over night! We dont and never will know the full facts of the Orford saga and who it stopped us getting

keep the faith .. its a long walk back to being competitive!

ill settle for effort this year .. and hopefully the juniors wont turn out to be "stevo stars of the future"

1st July 2004

I'm sure there's deeper problems at Bradford that their own fans are knowledgable of and I am not.

But from the outside looking in it was evident from the get go that you went for quantity over quality in respect of your recruitment.

What happened then? I would have said when McNamara got hold of the team.

Iestyn Harris.

I think it's slowly dawning on a lot of people that there's going to be no quick fix. We show up week after week hoping for a turning point; in reality we're praying for a miracle. If anything this season is turning out worse that last. Yesterday was a very dark day.

Sadly I see a further demise. The Pledge scheme was a great idea but what are we going to do to retain the fan base next year? We were promised 'a new era' but it's just not being delivered. I don't think Potter is going to leave us in any better position than he found us to be honest.

What we put out on the park is the only way to make us money - but even when we were winning titles fans deserted the club. With the progress being made elsewhere in Super League it is not beyond the bounds of possibility to see us losing our licence by the end of the decade.

Has a club ever fallen from grace so quickly?

Its sad to see the demise of the once mighty bulls, especially the effect it has on the fans. I remember only too well the hammerings dished out to the wire by the bulls in the superleague era and loosing 2 challenge cup semis. The bulls players were so big and seemed to have a giant in every position. The seemed almost unbeatable. I still find it hard to believe that it is now wire that is handing out the hammerings and the Bulls taking such a pounding. It is a privelage for me to see Warrington doing so well but we will have to win a few more things yet to match what the Bulls have done.
I Hope for the Bulls fans sake that things pick up, believe me i know what its like following a poor team. For the sake of the competition we need a strong bulls team - except when they play wire!!

I wish the season would end right now before we are embarrassed even more than we already are. How do we rescue a season from here with a squad decimated by injuries and average players taking to the field each week. In many ways we are lucky that there is no relegation as I think we would be looking at this as a fight for survival right now.

this is a riduculously stupid thread

riiiiiiight.

thanks Adeybull, my exact analysis at the start of the season when the fantasy footballers were bemoaning the lack of Aussie superstars signings. And you dont need to read the accounts to work it out: If we had the money we would not have any space under the cap, it would be spent.

I find it absolutely amazing that any Bulls fan could think that we had a hope against Warrington, my view is that we get the points we need to get into the playoffs by beating mid to bottom teams by just one point if necessary nine times to get us the 18 more points we need to get there. and on that note one good thing that happened for the Bulls yesterday is that KR lost to Wakefield, ok by 2 points, but that is exactly what we have to do.

So forget the game yesterday, it was irrelevant to achieving the target for the season. we need 6 points from the next three SL games ie Hull Kr Salford and Quins. That is a big step on the way to the playoffs, and will give the lads a bit of confidence too. If they can do it.

And at the start of the season I said I would be happy to get into the playoffs PROVIDED the younger players had not been over-played, which is also the message from Hood in that article. So despite saying I would not want Leon back in previous threads, right now a fit Leon would be a big help as would Mason, both to take pressure off the kids and put a bit of edge into our play, particularly defence, and help restart the season. and Kearney could stay at FB all the time when he returns, and Briggs would have a mentor that has done it all. So a bit more positional stability would be a good thing, utility players are all very well, but you can have too many of them, we need a full time SO and a full time FB