I think this is a particularly harsh take. If it was true about Fax , then the scoreline would have been bigger than it was.

Close to the line generally (IMO) Fax never troubled our defence too much especially in the first half. They had to rely on some good play on the break further out but it was hardly scoring at will.

Our failure to capitalise when they had one in the bin ultimately cost us IMO even that early in the game.

Hard to disagree with the end result for sure, however had we nicked it at the end it would have been a total injustice either.

I'm not mad, just a bit disappointed!

Give it a rest Northus. If you're blaming Lilley for the defeat. How about the captains appalling read in defence yet again. Ryan was anonymous today. FB is almost as crucial as your HB in attack. If you think that's this is the most abysmal side you've seen you can't have been watching us long. Are we dull, yes. But we've made a quarter final, beaten Leeds and are a couple of points of the play-offs in our first year back. We're A frustrating side right now though and need to be better.

Our defence, particuarly around the middle is the biggest worry right now. How many times have Fax scored that type of try against us! Crossley again the culprit. Things need freshening up.

Well done Fax.

I'd expect to see the following play at Barrow on Wednesday:

Roche
Pickersgill
Ricketts
Stephenson
Gibson
Bustin
Milton
Hodgson
O'Sullivan

yup agreed and Milnes is costly loss for us, an extra game we could have done without. The start of the game we had one half and basically, we have been relying on the only true half, a 19 year old. do we have academy/u16 that could fill the roll now? a pun of course but i hope Keyes pulls through. We had a huge squad with 4 halves at the start and cruel luck has us at zero? still dont see lilley as a half.


I'll stop saying 'half' now as my chinese beers need topping up lol

He likes to moan!

Why should I give it a rest? Do you think Lilley played well?
I've been watching Bradford for decades and yes this team is up there.

For what it's worth I don't think Ryan should be playing fullback, but that's just another baffling decision by Kear. At least we've signed Brown so it looks like they're trying to rectify the situation.

Lilley s fine as an organising half back, he needs someone alongside him who can produce something on attack. Anyone know anyone?

You need stock in your shop for there to be merchandise sales

Nah you're right, but it's over now anyway.

Well,so much for the Cup. I’m glad we don’t have the distraction of a shellacking by Saints. Although it grates to lose at home to Fax, beating Leeds was great, and some much needed brass in the bank.

But the serious injury I feared from games we don’t need is a blow.

The problem is that while we have resilience in defence, and a good attitude, we are a frighteningly one-dimensional style of play with ball in hand, and it’s not difficult to counter. We can’t come up with any last tackle plays to put the pressure on (the perennial punt in the air is as predictable as Monday mornings), and we must never hunt in fast packs with the threat of offloads, instead it’s one man plunge after plunge.

Too easy to defend.

Our main players are all off the boil but then we insist on playing players like Ryan and Minchella out of position, so maybe that’s a factor.

I actually enjoyed the game in some res, a to and fro cup tie, which could have gone either way, but was also frustrated at our failings which are not new. I fear we have been rumbled.

As the saying goes 'at least we can concentrate on the league' (assuming we play a shadow squad against Barrow and lose on Wednesday)

Although you can correctly say that we could have won, or at least forced golden point, with better goal kicking, the truth is that two of our tries came directly from mistakes by them. They were still valid tries, but you can hardly say that we created them through good play. Only the Milnes try was actually 'made' by good play.

And there is the problem with our team right now, we simply don't look like creating tries. Somehow we've got to do more than wait for errors, get lucky on the end of a kick, or a scoot from dummy half. We must be the easiest team in the Championship to defend against!

kear has said that nobody who played today will feature Wednesday.

I think looking at the bigger picture we are all a bit guilty of expecting too much from this squad. We are still a work in progress. We've come up against a solid established Championship club and just fallen short of getting the result from missed conversions. Yes the performance was poor for large spells but i don't expect Halifax will be thrilled with their performance either but they got a result which is all that counts.
We need to strengthen some areas but it won't happen overnight without a lot of money being thrown at it. Still feel we lack a bit of a talisman who can really take the game by the scruff of the neck. I guess those players aren't readily available but you just knew Murrell would likely edge things into Fax favour.

The season really is dead we look like we are safe from relegation and no chance of promotion so why don't we change tack and start attempting to take risks, instead of this conservative style of play. If not, all the good work done with the cup run Will be forgotten and the crowds will tail off watching this style of rugby. I think JK has done a great job up to now, but I feel he has to change the style of play and can now experiment a little.

I honestly think we never really recovered from the Joe Keyes thing. He played all our friendly matches (or most of them) and was looking in good form. I'm sure he was going to be the focal point of our whole attacking structure. So to lose him for the whole season to date obviously rocked our preparations.
We then have the Pickersgill situation. Given a full time deal during the off season, for whatever reason things have turned sour. I don't agree with JK's decision to just drop the kid and never play him again but combined with McNally's departure it left us with a key position empty. Kear is trying to fit a square peg into a round hole by playing Ryan there imo - it's not working.
There is then also the situation with Chisholm. Not exactly sure what went on but he's gone now. Was this Kear's plan at the start of the season? I really don't believe it was.

Add in other factors like the long term injuries to Evans, Hitchcox and Peltier and the mitigating factors are starting to accumulate.

I might be wrong with all of the above but this is how I'm trying to justify our current performances in my mind. There has to be something behind why we're playing so poorly, I refuse to believe this is how JK wants us to play. I don't mind us doing the basics but performances like today's go way beyond that.

Hopefully we can just get our heads down and try and finish the last part of the season strongly now. Top 5 would be a bonus but I have a feeling we might just fall short. I can see us finishing 6th or 7th. To be fair, after getting promoted from League 1 last season I'd take that and hope to build on it in 2020.

The cup run and the derby against Leeds will have definitely helped in terms of finances and budgets/cashflow, so that is at least one positive to draw from this season already.