As much as Lynch carried the pack at times during last year, the PTB will speed up now he's not here. He's not the quickest at playing it and Heath and Diskin will prefer speed at the PTB to get forward

I admire the optimism of those on here. I hope you're right but I have sewious weservations.

With a bit of luck as people have said with injuries, bounce of ball, ref decisions etc, i think comfortably we will get in the 8, if push comes to shove i`d play Langley at prop due to injuries so Bateman plays at loose forward.We`ve got better half-backs, Centres, and plenty of cover for 2nd Row when Whitehead`s ban is over. Lets see how Olbison, Donaldson go with a full pre-season. Elima to come in when fit, Joseph?

I'd forgotten you had Elima. Lynch was good but not as good as the amount Hull paid for him IMO. When I've seen the Bulls on Sky he did seem prone to errors and coming up with dumb attacking plays (e.g. going for glory from 5m out on the last tackle etc).

I think if Bradford can stay within touching distance of the top 4 by Easter they should be able to avoid the customary slide in the summer, assuming the signings in the backs and halves are as good as they seem to be on paper.

No doubt I'll be proven wrong about Hull. Perhaps the new coach will 'do a Maguire'.

to be honest i dont know why bradford have struggled the last couple of years they have had a good team on paper enough to make the top 8 at least when you came to craven park last season i was suprised how easy we beat you and at odsal come to think of it

We became experts at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, wilting in the face of adversity and (most seriously of all, obviously) generally leaving us fans the laughing stock of the competition.

But the minutes of a secret board meeting have just come into our possession. And now we know the truth.

It transpires was it all a cunning, long-term plan to lull the rest of the competition into thinking they could safely take us for granted because we were a totally spent force.

So that this season, we could storm back and steal a good dozen games or so and be sitting near the top of the table before everyone else even realised we had been kidding them... 3.84375:5