Rowan Milnes into the halves and Tex Hoy back at fullback. Hooley will remain with us for the foreseeable.

Bulls Squad:


Sam Ackroyd
Guy Armitage
Waqa Blake
Logan Bayliss-Brow
James Donaldson
Zac Fulton
Matty Gee
Kieran Gill
Sam Hallas
Luke Hooley
Joe Keyes
Michael Lawrence
Jordan Lilley
Bailey Liu
Nathan Mason
James Meadows
Ronan Michael
Jayden Okunbor
Ebon Scurr
Mitch Souter
Manu Waine

Watch out for Stack the slimy g*t. He will be looking to get somebody else sent off.

Luke Hooley


Guy Armitage
Kieran Gill
Waqa Blake
Jayden Okunbor


Joe Keyes
James Meadows

James Donaldson
Zac Fulton
Matty Gee
Logan Bayliss-Brow/Scurr - if fit
Jordan Lilley
Michael Lawrence


Waine - misses out if Scurr fit
Ronan Michael
Mitch Souter
Hallas

Am I right thinking that Tafua got a 3 game ban from the Toulouse game?

Yes, 3 game ban and a fine. Jorge has a hamstring injury so fortunately for us this coincides with his ban.

Down to the bare bones at the minute with injuries. Scurr won't feature tonight according to comments from Noble in his preview clip on Bulls TV.

Barrow have started very well with 2 wins from 3 and have toppled play off favourites Oldham in their last league outing. We have the skill and quality to get the job done as long as we don't get dragged into the niggle, scraps and other nonsense they'll try to pull.


Discipline will win this game for us tonight. It was against Barrow where Taufua was convicted of biting a couple of years ago. Stay focussed and let our rugby do the talking. Hopefully, the referee sets the tone early and stamps out anything dodgy, but we can't rely on that. We have to be smart and rise above it. If we keep our heads and play the way we know we can, we'll come out on top.

Well, just seen the score.... Glad I'm on a night shift!.... Any post match analysis?

It was really bad - we look so ordinary when we come up against a side we cannot just run through. Attitude just didn't seem right to me and it's not the first time this year we have turned up not prepared to roll up our sleeves.


The halfbacks they just aren't working together either, not sure which one of Keyes/Meadows was worst last night but something needs to change there. Lilley and Keyes have played together before so that would be the obvious change to make.


We have some tough games coming up, I'm concerned. The players need a bloody good rocket up their backsides for serving up that dross on front of their home fans.

That, was worse than Toulouse. Lots to fix in the 9 days before Fev. 

It was a performance fitting for red nose day, what a joke.
Players running round in circles bumping into each other. Our halfbacks are terrible. Meadows is Mr. Catch and pass, never creates anything, Keys does take the line on sometimes but very rarely gets through. We really need to do something there.
Why are we playing Hallas when we have Waine and Lieu sat in the stand?
I'm starting to worry.
So predictable, first two tackles of every set is our wingers coming in to take the ball and the last is a high kick to the corner again very predictable. 
All credit to Barrow, they ran hard, offloaded and tackled well also looked far more enthusiastic.

A frustrating but not entirely unexpected result. A few key takeaways for me:


Barrow clearly have the edge on us in recent meetings with us only winning 1 of the last 5 head to head games. This suggests they know how to disrupt our game plan. Without 100% focus they were always likely to cause us problems.


The team seems to be able to put together strong spells, like against Cas and Hunslet, but not sustain them for a full 80 minutes. That suggests fitness, concentration, or leadership on the pitch might be an issue. We looked completely rudderless last night and we had some very experienced players on the pitch. That for me is worrying.


Okunbor making a break with no one in support to play the ball is unforgivable. Either players aren’t reading the game well or aren’t working hard enough off the ball. Similarly, handling errors and defensive lapses are self-inflicted wounds that Barrow punished. Okunbor drops the ball cold, they score under the sticks. Blake just gives up on tackling their man on the last set and they score again.


If the halfbacks aren’t linking up well, it makes the attack predictable. The lack of creativity in last-play options is another red flag—teams will read that and shut it down. Kicking the ball to Okunbor over and over again seemed like the only option we could come up with. Meadows and Keyes both running around like headless chickens during that second half. Utterly clueless.


This squad has the talent but not the application. We showed last week that when we throw the ball around and play some rugby we create chances. We were woefully predictable last night. I can see another loss against Featherstone next week unless some serious changes are made to our attitude and application.