Hirst is following Kear to Wakefield.

I'd take Ben Evans, cracking player. Or at least he was when he was here a few years ago.
I also said earlier that I wouldn't be surprised if we signed Achurch and Falloon from Leeds. They could probably both go well at this level but Achurch is supposedly on a huge salary at Leeds, hopefully we aren't paying over the odds for him.

I suggested Olbison move to prop because IMO he's the new Langley, offers little else but carrying the ball up.

It was bad enough thinking Falloon was on his way but Achurch as well? Hell no.

I can't tell if Achurch is just lazy and crap, or if he's doing it on purpose at Leeds because he's thrown the toys out of the pram over the way they treated him.
Remember when Leeds signed him? GH was really bigging him up. Not sure what's gone on there but it's not often GH gets it so wrong.



I can't agree. Olbison actually has genuine pace, and running out wide - where he's supposed to be - he can be a real threat. Go back and watch our middle 8s win over Salford last year to see what I mean. At prop he just loses all effectiveness.

I think Olbison has just stagnated in the last year or so, and probably isn't going to fulfil his early promise if he stays in the comfort zone with us.

Loathe as I would be to see another home grown talent move on, I do actually think a change of environment might do him the world of good.

Would be very happy with Ben Evans.

Achurch and Falloon I'm unsure on. Acurch would certainly give us some much needed size. But probably not the aggression or nastiness we're badly needing. Think he'll go well at this level though. Falloon would be a better signing than Howarth IMO but I hope he isn't put ahead of O'brien. Only saw highlights on Bulls TV but he looked to have a storming game against Whitehaven.

Agree with that.

The 'good player' must still be there though, inside. I thought the new coach arriving might have been enough of a 'change' but it seems not - so far at least. Change of club may well be what he needs - suspect I'd put Danny Addy in the same category too, neither have really built on the promise we saw in the last year of SL, I for one, thought they'd both be ripping up this division but, sad to say, for whatever reason, they just haven't.

Is that not a common theme of Bradford in recent years though? Player breaks through in academy, looks like he could be a future star, then ends up stagnating and moving on, only to reach that potential elsewhere?

I would say Whitehead, Bateman and T Burgess certainly fall into that category. Luke Gale maybe too (although didn't come through our academy). All started to look like their progression had totally stopped before going elsewhere and becoming stars. Donaldson not so much as I don't think he ever stopped developing, he was always quality for us.

I think if you bring promising youngsters into a side that’s flawed then you run the risk of stopping their development. They can get bad habits and never realise their potential. It’s happened a lot with us and I think that’s down to the fact that we’ve recruited very poorly for years in the key leadership positions. That’s mainly down to the head coach. Our best coach of recent years (Potter) arrested the slide and got us into the top 8 before points deduction got us. He made sure the side had a good spine so young players could come in under less pressure.

Look at how Addy’s development has gone since he got into the 1st team. For his entire 1st team career he’s been played out of position. Not good for his development or for the rest of the team.

here's a really novel idea - how about a player who can kick conversions?

How many games have we lost this season, despite scoring more tries than the opposition, simply because we can't convert the 4-pointers into 6's?!

It's something we can and must improve on that's for sure.