Well, no, I'm not going to argue that one.

There is the point though, that often there is more lost in [iresting[/i fully fit players than there is gained by not playing for a few weeks [which is what your plan entails], and not least the fact that we have a few new players who could really do with game time to enable them to complete [and in one case, start] the 'bedding in' process. Also, many players do benefit from continuity, as no doubt Lowesy would argue....

Addy is only ok at half back if he knows his half back partner can be relied upon to bail him out. He[Addy] is like the majority of the Bradford fans in that we've no faith in Siejka being able to perform

You won't find me complaining about Addy, as he just gets on with whatever Lowes wants him to do, and does his best, whether out of position or whatever.

We are now almost in September and to date there is not one single thing that Siejka has doen that sticks in the mind as "that was excellent". He has had limited gametime but he has shown nothing, at all, in the time he has played that impressed me.

It's all very well talking about bedding in etc but what worries me is every other top class halfback DOES THINGS. Even if unfit. Even if never played for a team before. They just automatically show what they have got because they just make things happen. It may be in flashes, if unfit, but it's always there.

Maybe it will all be revealed in a gamewinning blinder against Salford. I have stuck to the notion that Lowes MUST have seen things in Siejka that we haven't, else why would he be persisting with him, so come on Harry, your moment has come.

absolutely roger, at times the line speed of the defence was zero so Wakefield had plenty of players with momentum and therefore options by the time they hit our defence, whereas we had barely got going when we hit the Wakefield defence as they had pushed up so quickly. Eventually Ferguson got at them and Luaki a bit, but it was overall a woeful display by the pack. jay pitts might be small but hes always fast up in defence and one factor in who wins the collision is momentum which is weight multiplied by speed, not just weight by itself.

Siejka was rubbish at Wakey and looked disinterested, Agar saw something in him but he's living off his 'Aussie schoolboy/ Penrith paid a load for him as a junior' tag.

I can see the argument for focusing on the Leigh and Fax games. But there's no point qualifying for £1m game if we end up being thrashed by Wakey again. Don't we need to use the Salford, HKR and Widnes games to adapt our defense to playing SL teams? Get some practice against fast PTB's and decent half backs?

It seemed to me that a major reason why the pack was so timid against Wakey was that we were standing off of them because our forwards were unsure who Smith would give the ball to. We've become used to playing against very predictable attacks. We need the 3 remaining SL games to adapt.

I wasn't actually thinking of Siejka when I mentioned the 'bedding in' thing, more the new wingers and centres getting used to their partners.

Harry hasn't shown any real sign of being a top half as yet and I'm, more or less, sort of getting used to the idea that he probably never will. I guess JL doesn't have any choice but to stick with him. Let's be honest, we were more than a bit desperate when Gareth O'Brien gave backword and, looking at Siejka's 'CV' on Youtube, he looked a good bet. To be honest I would never expect a coach to badmouth a player and obviously, with what's [isaid[/i in the dressing room quite rightly [istaying[/i in the dressing room - in any case, it doesn't come over very well for anybody concerned. There's also the possibility that it's a confidence thing with Harry and maybe Jimmy has maybe decided he won't get any better with too much open criticism? It's also true to say we're not exactly overrun with alternatives right now.

No Danny Williams either and T&A reckons Siejka to start in the halves. Put myself through the misery of watching the Wakey game and it wasn't the fact that Siejka created little and didn't organise the team whatsoever, but he came up with some howlers (The type Sammut used to come up with, but at least he had plenty of brilliant plays in him). I'm sure Siejka was the one that didn't find touch. And then at 30-12, we had a bit of possession in Wakey's half and inside their 10, he grubbered straight into the arms of the Wakefield player killing the tiniest momentum we had just started to get at the beginning of the half.

Cannot understand why he doesn't put Mullaney at HB

The trouble is, Mullaney is also our best full-back, so if we play him in the halves, we lose what he brings to the team when he's at 1 - positional sense and speed mainly. We have several options at full-back now (Shaw, Mendeika, Clare) but I feel much more confident when Mullaney's there. Clare had a poor game against Wakefield, and I'd be worried about Shaw's defence at SL level. Mendeika looked solid enough at Championship level but isn't as fast as Jake.

Unfortunately, Siejka doesn't create enough at half-back in comparison to Mullaney, so we lose creativity when Jake's not at 7.

It's a tricky one. Jimmy's preference seems to be Siejka at 7 and Mullaney at 1, as he seems to see something in Siejka that I think a lot of us have yet to see, myself included.

This is just what worries me about Siejka, on the rare occasions he does try to do something off-the-cuff or spontaneous, he invariably makes a bugger of it. The top halfbacks just keep pecking at your head, coming up with a variety of things that work, time after time. Did you see the one time Siejka found himself in a bit of space with the ball, middle of the field, on around their 40? Second half? he literally looked lost, slowed to a walk and came up with zilch. What was he thinking?

There's every point in qualifying, but yes, if you believed that the Wakefield debacle was a fair reflection of what our present team is capable of, then you may think there was no point in actually playing it.



Kind of agree and disagree, I don't understand why you would ever stand off ANY team, but the better the team, the MORE you need to sprint out into their faces and give them as little space as you can manage/

Also I don't want to diss Wakey but despite their improvement under Smithy, people musn't lose sight of the fact that they are pretty crap, and would be absolutely mullered by the likes of Leeds, and have been all season long. being SL budget and all that, they should be favourites against us and Leigh, but the gap should be close, and we should be able to give them a bloody good game. There are those that say we were caught out by coming up against "SL speed and class" - absolute joke, Wakey are not Sl class, they are bottom dwellers albeit with a bit of dead Cat bounce, and some people bigging them up post-defeat into some slick scary SL speed and size machine is to me just bollox. They are a very poor side by SL standards and they have proved it all year long. It's a cliche to say we made them look good, but in this case, we so did.

I think playing for 5th place is all we can do.
Yes, we may still get beat in that game by Wakey but I would still look forward to going with that hope that any team can lift itself for a one off game.

Lets go back in time for one minute. It is February. Someone says to you that we can ignore the whole season. We can have one game against Wakey at their place and if we win we go up and they come down. I would have taken that - and thousands of other supporters would IMO.

That is what may happen if we beat Fax and Leigh as long as Leigh lose to the SL clubs. One game and promotion. If that doesn't lift the lads then nothing will. Stranger things have happened and will again!

Tomorrow's game actually has a larger effect on the rest of our season than our own game on Sunday does!
Still can't bring myself to cheer for Wakefield.

I would be much happier going into that one off game with some improvement under our belt. I would be more than fine with us losing the Salford, HKR, and Widnes games if we progressively reduced the number of points conceded by 10 points per game.

Only way you can play for 5th is by trying to win every game possible. If we decide the SL games don't matter, we're effectively hoping Leigh don't win any games against SL opposition and also hoping it will all come together nicely away at Leigh and beat them.
You can't turn performances on and of like a tap as was evident last week. When we were losing against Fax Sheffield Jimmy said those games won't decide out future. Gets to the crunch game that does have a huge effect on our future, we're out of the game after 20 mins.

We have to go all out to win every game IMO