If the whole picture includes dwindling crowds, embarrassing results, poor recruitment, increased apathy from the support and complete lack of confidence in the coach, then I reckon that a lot of people have done exactly that, as often gets mentioned on here.

He has also been given the credit for his work in emphasising the youth policy and we will see if that does bear fruit in time I guess.

It is also widely accepted that we are not exactly rolling in cash at the moment, Odsal is a drain on the resources and the OSV is less likely to been seen in existence than the Loch Ness Monster.

We have also been told by the Chairman that we are spending full cap so we cannot really use that as an excuse, and therefore, again this raises questions about the quality of recruitment and/or whether the money is being badly used.

I also accept that we have had injuries to the likes of Morrison, Solomona, Lynch, Nero etc but all clubs get injuries so, as unfortunate as it is, we have to deal with it and get the best out of what we have at our disposal.

Which raises another point. As we all know, I have to do my majority of watching of RL on Sky, and Bradford are obviously no exception to this. This is where I am less able to comment but the general view on here is that the effort that is getting put in is not really good enough and questions will rightly be raised about this.

So, that is my take on the situation and if there is anything else in the picture that I am not aware of, perhaps you would like to let us know?

There are 3 reasons why we haven't been able to replace those players:

1) Money - it simply cannot be the case that the current squad are being paid anything like those players, surely?

2) Youth development -that squad had strong core of Bulls developed players. We're currently paying a hefty price for the failure to sustain that from 2000 to 2006.

3) Recruitment - I do think it has generally been poor. Our success from 1997 to 2005 owed a lot to inspired recruitment of hidden gems such as Withers, Gartner, forshaw & Anderson. Of our recent sigings, only Morrison (targeted initiallly by Noble) has proved to be a consistently better player than was expected. The others have been extremely inconsistent.

The cut and thrust of it is that we have lost good players recently but we still have a good team with potential. Its just that our coach is not bringing out this potential.

We are second bottom of the league, we are lucky the franchise system was introduced otherwise we might be in danger of relegation. Although the way things are going we probably wont get a licence next time.

Buck stops with the coach im afraid.

But that's just a cliche. We all know that 99% of all coaches go, sooner or later, most having a quite short tenure, and that's basically for two reasons, first all teams sooner or later end up doing worse than the (usually unrealistic) expectations and second, in that situation they can either sack the team or sack the coach; but (obviously) you can't sack the team and that is why the "buck" always stops with the coach.

It may or may not be the coach's fault - but he will pay for it.

(In fact I'd also reckon that in most cases the "fault" is shared between the players, board and coach, but a large part is fans who put boards under pressure.)

Look at Bradford City, the other team in the city to have an ex-player called S. Mc coaching them. City ended up having an appalling season, crashing out of the playoff race like a lead weight from a plane, and played for the last couple of months like partially sighted, unfit chimps, yet McCall hasn't gone.

On the contrary, a campaign was launched to persuade him to stay! As the fans love him, and reckon it was the players let them and him down. So they clamour to keep him, despite the failure, and despite the obvious fact that when the chips were down he could hardly coach his side to kick a ball, let alone gain a point.

I don't think we have unrealistic expectations but personally I don't expect us to be second bottom and neither can it be said that we don't consider the whole picture....3 years is a long time to consider after all.

We obviously have space under the cap hence why we were able to go after Bird and yes recruitment is part of the issue of where we are now. I would however point out that i do not believe the current squad is delivering on it's potential and SM has been in charge long enough to be able to sort out signings and instill his methods.

We are not performing and haven't been for a while, people seem to be laying the blame at the fact of the squad we had and what it is now, I know we don't have a benefactor and we don't "exploit" loopholes but even so Saints have managed to keep their position. Am i saying we should still be there fighting to be number 1, of course what true fan wouldn't but in reality I except change and perhaps we are not as well off as others, but to drop so far in such a short period of time is alarming.

We seem to go in circles, we lose then people moan then a few days after when it's calmed down a bit the pro mac supporters come out again telling us that we have unrealistic expectations and we should be glad of the job he's doing, we're not considering the bigger picture and it'll all come good in the end.

You know what I hope it does, but i don't think it will unless somethings changed, as you say the only thing that can be changed short term is the manager.

We need to move forward as a club and i see no messages coming from the club about rebuilding e.t.c the only message that's being sent out at the moment is the defeats, attendances and our position in the league table. If we have a long term plan do we really have to slump to these depths to deliver it? If we do, why is the club not communicating the vision?

Excellent point.

But remember this is all part of "the plan"

It is and hopefully the fans forum will go some way to explaining this question.

A couple of other points:

1. On Saints maintenance of their position, don't forget they had a 3 year absence from OT.
Although I accept they've recovered quicker than we look to be.

2. Rebuilding is a long process and in response to some other comments, I do think there has had to be an element of tearing things down to start again.
You can't invent a good junior side, that takes an awful lot of time and energy and the absence of these players who could and would have broken the first team have seen an elevated wage bill due to the fact we've had to sign established players, players who, quite rightly, have higher salary expectations.

3. Cibaman also raises a good point re: hidden gems. Maybe if the Aus option is becoming more limited, there are some hidden gems in the NL's

Perhaps the biggest of several parts of the puzzle you are missing is the issue of "Will sacking McNamara make things better?" You treat this as a no-brainer, when the fact is that it would cause great disruption and the club would have to be very fortunate to recruit a coach of sufficient ability to counteract that. Just for example, Brian Mac's record at Quins suggests that good as he is, in the unlikely event of him taking the job, he would not meet this standard.

Agreed.

What's to say SM leaving wouldn't also see some of the top names leave too, in an uncertain environment, that would be quite possible!

A question I will be putting for the fans forum is how many juniors have they forecasted to make it through to be regular first teamers each season over the next 3 to 4 years. No need to name names, I appreciate that's impossible but they must have some idea of numbers.

I would also ask if they thought the current first team was capable of providing the right environment for young players to progress given the first team performances so far this season.

I do have a worry that we may be expecting a little too much from junior development and are possibly not recruiting from outside as well as we might. If cash is tight the temptation is there to spend more on bringing young players though as it's more economical. The risk is that will impact on the cash available to recruit from outside so we get fewer proven top class players.

Aside from occasional gluts of young players coming through every once in a while it seems to me that you can't expect more than a couple to come through each year.

While I hope this plan may pay dividands in the long term I worry that the club doesn't have the finance or support to underpin this very long term approach.

Where is the evidence that Brian Mc would not meet this standard? He has turned a mediocre team, whose survival I was concerned about, into a consistent, well-coached, top 5 team. Steve Mc has turned a top 5 team into a bottom 2 team.

No it isn't all down to Steve, and I don't think theres any true fans on here would be as unintelligent as to think it is all down to him. But the question is a valid one in that, `can he turn it around?'

Good question.

As you might of guessed, I think he can.
Although we have declined over that last few years, I think that was inevitable and would have happened under anyone.

Correct so it also then follows that McNamara isn't alone in having to turn it around.

But concentrating on what he can influence I'm still not sure he's up to it. Despite all the problems he's had to endure we still appear to be deteriorating and he's confessed more than once to be baffled why that's the case.

Not a good sign.

It isn't a good sign.
But is it a turn of phrase in the heat of interview? (Serious question, I'm not defending him)

How long do we wait? (Again, serious question)

Do we have to accept we're never going to be the same force again? (Still being serious!)