This is possibly the lowest quality playing group he's worked with. Maybe that's it?

Aye, fair point. I forgot everything happens two weeks behind in the lower leagues.

I was stood with an Oldham fan and his comments were that you are going to have to get rid of a lot of this lot if you go up.

He's right there. We need some leaders and some experience. Webster is a good start. Think the spine needs some attention too.

I will throw a name into the ring who would be good for the bulls
MARTIN RYDYARD

Then why do we seem to be rushing to sign up as many as possible of them for next season?

Won’t have a chance of getting ridyard

I think theres a good team in there. We're definitely lacking leaders though. Need to get the team by the scruff of the neck and cut out these basic errors out. No more chances now. Sudden death rugby (im not counting the Hemel game as it doesnt prove if we play well or not)

We've gone backwards since Lilley arrived, we had a nice half back pairing emerging (at last) with Keyes looking a decent long term bet at 7, and we then threw another dynamic in there and we have lacked attacking cohesion since, we are pitiful 10 metres out and very easy to read - I certainly don't think he's improved us.

We have no attacking structure or plays to speak of, and whilst that's got us past a most of this league of amateur teams that might struggle at the top of the national conference, we're going to be crushed next year if we don't sort it.

Our time at the bottom of the championship and top of League 1 has not been kind to us, and we have an underperforming group if we are honest and we all need a wake up call, we should won this league by a canter.

Why not if he was available? Considering the signing of Webster and reported interest in taking Hitchcox permanently we are targetting the right quality so if he could sign for Fev why not us. Not that I am saying we should be in for him but if any of the interest in Keyes rears its head again I think he would be perfect to target as a replacement

Interesting angle. I think much of our lack of cohesion isn't just down to the halfbacks but also the changes at hooker and fullback. Changing the playmakers certainly doesn't help and when those same players start to take the wrong option (plenty of that in the 2nd half) everything falls apart.

It's difficult. I appreciate that Lilley can play hooker (though we're not short in that department, tbh) but we seem to have a settled pairing of halves and his addition means that three into two doesn't go, and I feel he's wasted as acting half. I wonder what the plans are for next year, based on the assumptions, that is? Both Keyes and Chisholm are signed for next year but we all know how that can be relied on, so do the management know something we're not aware of? Obviously they know lots of things, but I'm thinking something specifically to do with the halves.

Off at a bit of a tangent, but is it just me who thinks that our lack of ability to put people through gaps, or even create gaps, is as much down to lack of runners than failings in the playmakers?

I'm not sure Chisholm is to be honest, he was saying on twitter he's got nothing signed for next year.

Your right though, how many times do we see people looking for runner only to be disappointed to see acres of clear field between them and the next Bradford Shirt and the attack is stopped dead.

I honestly think we have the team to have blitzed this league and that's really frustrating.

But...turning to experience as a reason I do believe we'd not have lost to York had Gibson and Smith been in the team and I never thought I'd say how much we missed Smith but he does appear to have a certain quality on the pitch that we sadly lacked whilst panicking against York.

Had they been in the side consistently we may have been looking at a different story. I know they both seem to have gorilla glue on their hands but they appear to have been given the Scott Naylor role as centres.

As far as I’m aware Chisholm’s deal runs out at the end of this season and negotiations have been ongoing, he is a fulltime player. Keyes is under contract for another year and remains part time. IMO I’m not sure if the mix of fulltime and part time works well or not with certain groups of players. Lilley is due to be here on loan in 2019 too and we do need at least 3 bona-fide halfbacks in the squad. How Kear decides to fit them in or who to drop is an interesting conundrum but so far I’d say the understanding between them and with the rest of the team could be improved.

On the point about a lack of runners I think that’s valid. We often see halfbacks or fullbacks looking for them but nobody puts their hand up and runs a line. I’m not sure whether that’s down to a lack of ability to read the game or whether some players are harder to run off than others. There is a lack of support play in general and this means that players very rarely offload. This has crept into our game of late compared with earlier in the season. It makes us very predictable in attack. We have the predictable “out of the back” move that we seem to execute far too slowly and standing far too shallow. Often the opposition is offside or our PTB is slow so why we’re so shallow I don’t know. The other move is the one where we go wide and throw an inside ball for the fullback to come into the line. Again executed well very rarely recently. Other than that it’s off the cuff barring the kick to Ethan. It’s getting too easy to defend against.

When you look at the stats we have the best attack and best defence so maybe we being a bit harsh, we have beaten everyone bar Workington. We have looked our least impressive against teams that beat us up down the middle so perhaps the halfbacks get too much criticism. It’s a fact that we need at least 4 props in the 17 versus those sides (I’m starting to think that Kear’s dropping of Peltier vs Workington is up there with Smith’s dropping of O’Brien versus Fev in 2016).

TBF IIRC decision to drop Peltier against Workington was due to external factors rather than purely being a tactical decision by Kear. Think he'd spent a lot of previous week dealing with family matters and had missed a lot of sleep.