Quote Ferocious Aardvark="Ferocious Aardvark"here you have 2 games which sum up all that is wrong with the current Bulls setup.
Game 1: Play like a set of demons for 80 minutes, murder Huddersfield as if our lives depended on it
Game 2: After 2 weeks rest and practice, trot out at Wire and play pretty much from 1-17 as if nobody could be arrsed in the slightest.
Then all chorus how unacceptable they know it was, and how they'll work sooooo hard next week to put it right.
This is what i have been going on about the players for svereal seasons now, I blame them. I believe Potter is a good coach, but he seems powerless to do anything on the days we decide we ain't playing, and from a paying speccies POV, it is demoralising and annoying in equal measure to give up a Sunday and pay a boatload of cash to go watch a team that we cheered to the rafters a fortnight ago trot out and stick the proverbial two fingers up at the fans.
Sure we have no sugardaddy, but we have a team that can play and can work their backsides off, so we are entitled to ask why some weeks they regularly and clearly deliberately don't bother.'"
I see where this analysis comes from but it masks a Murdochian failure in oversight in the club's management. Sykes has been a poor player for 5 seasons. It's not that he's not trying, he's a terrible defender that has been signed and then re-signed twice more. Myler (a scrum half released by Widnes upon their relegation) targeted our right side and they scored 4 walk in tries in the first half and the game was over.
Similarly, the forwards tried their very best, made ground and forced errors in Wire's danger zone in the first half. We were held up over the line a number of times but were unable to fashion a backline move because the players are not good enough.
Ah van's 'metres' suggest he's working at his socks off but we signed him and numerous others out of desperation because our long term vision of squad building had utterly collapsed. Potter has cobbled together a squad from the wreckage of the Macca era and others cast offs and a against a very good side we were shown to be what we are.
I think the players are trying their best but significant numbers of them are not SL standard and ultimately the management of the club has to take responsibility. As has been mentioned on another thread, these are not one offs, but a clear and systemic disaster of recruitment and retention going back years.