Yeah, so would I.

It seems we'll be missing Siejka against Fev and Hunslet so we need another goalkicker too, and though I appreciate that Jimmy has, no doubt, been trying his kickers on the training field, the Haven match would be an ideal opportunity to give that a go, in a match situation, too.

given we haven't included brook in 19 seems that plan for fev/hunslet games is going to be mullaney to halves and ulugia/shaw at FB. Or we could be keeping brook back as a bit of an unknown quantity to throw in next week. Think we'll aim to get a decent amount in front then bring sjelka off and switch mullaney to half to give him some gametime with Gaskell on sunday. so one off shaw or ulugia will have to be on bench to cover FB. Can uaisele cover FB too?

Yes mat and centre too.
would be good to have four specialist props, Lauaki will do short stints anyway, so no big deal if he does 5 minutes instead of 10, gets him back into it for the fev game.

Looks like the weather could be very poor on Sunday i hope it won't keep fans away COYB

It is far too soon for some players to be classed as "not first choice". We dearly need a goal kicker and Shaw was described as an outstanding kicker. If he can't get into a team with no kicker and a winger short and possibly our fullback at 7 then we might as well let the lad go. It possibly is a warm up game for Fev but I see the next 22 games as warm up games for the SL teams play offs. If Shaw can't be chosen because he is poor under the high kick, then he has a lot in common with big Les when he arrived and he turned out OK. So my point is we have 22 games to find our best 17 so each game give one of the fringe players a go till we have the list of names nailed on.

We should get our first two points on the board today, just hope the weather doesn't spoil the game.

Dewsbury travelled up to Workington this morning for their game to be called off after a pitch inspection.

We're then.

A decent win to get us rolling and no doubt a physical encounter as is always with the Cumbrian sides. Game will be won in the forwards next week so it's biggest pack we've got. That will give our reserve half back the chance to get things going, whoever it may be. Could move Gaskell to 7 but will take our running game down a few notches as a result. Any news on Mullaney? Hand could be forced to play young Brook if Jake has an injury that will keep him out. For me though it's probably the game not to blood him because Fev on their own patch vs us and they will be coming out to hurt. If Jake is ok then definitely him to start at 7.

6- Gaskell
7- Mullaney

8- Clough
9- O'Brien
10 - Sidlow
11 - Olbison
12 - Pitts
13 - Walker

14 - Lauaki
15 - Walshaw

It was a tough ugly win in rubbish conditions. I thought Sidlow was excellent for us and he was my man of the match. Gaskell backed up well for his 3 tries. I also thought Pitts was very good too.

Really looking forward to seeing Pitts and Ferguson line up together in the back row. Both great ball carriers.

Awful Conditions and an ugly win. Lots of improvement needed. But we're up and running and plenty of games to improve and find the best combinations.

To be fair I though Whitehaven looked good. Organised in defence and got stuck in.

Featherstone up next. Onwards and upwards.

Funny sort of game really, a combination of the awful conditions and our rustiness meant that it was never going to be any sort of classic. But there was never a point where it seemed like we might lose, even from the first minute

I suppose we are going to get a lot of these sorts of games, where we are expected to win by quite some margin. We're on a bit of a hiding to nothing. If we smash them by 60 points, then its 'Oh its only Whitehaven or Hunslet'. But if it ends up close, then we'll get slaughtered for not putting them away...

Anyway, a win is a win. Onwards and upwards to next week when it will be much tougher challenge

I think the conditions dictated most of the play today. Freezing cold, constant driving rain and a pitch that looked quite heavy underfoot.
We were quite rusty with the ball but in all honesty, were never really threatened by Whitehaven. They just couldn't gather any momentum and our pack was on top for pretty much the full 80.

The usual suspects ran the show. Gaskell, Sidlow, Pitts and AoB all looked like SL players playing in a lower division. Olbison and Clough also put in some decent shifts.

I think next week will be a far sterner test for us. I suspect we'll line up with Mullaney at 7, Shaw at full back and Ulugia brought in to the side to play wing/centre.

In today's other games, no real surprises apart from that score at Sheffield - they beat London 40-6!!

Great start to the afternoon, paid fifty quid for car parking but was told it was "full". At 215, against Whitehaven, in shoite weather. Bloody Fred Karno's. X spaces, so just issue X passes, it's not bloody rocket science.

The weather spoiled the game. We were well in command throughout, but still managed to give up masses of possession, especially in the first half, hopefully it was the conditions but very frustrating to watch the ball being repeatedly turned over.

But we did show some very good attack in many spells, and look very dangerous when on the front foot, Whitehaven found our pack a handful. Sidlow and Pitts were good, and Tahraoui (sp?) looked useful as he got going. Big lad, that. Gaskell may be the class of the division, and Siejka had a better day. Even got the biggest cheer when he actually kicked a goal.

I think what most impressed me was our defence. Maybe after the second half Leigh debacle they decided that can't happen again, whatever, Haven were almost never in danger of scoring. Despite some excellent positional kicking.

TBH think Whitehaven could have quite easily gone in ahead at ht. they fluffed a couple of chances at taking lead late in 1st half. We looked very nervy in first half. That said we settled and showed decent improvement to close game out in 2nd half.
Mullaney looked like a poke to eye, so hopefully ok for next week. With lauaki close to fitness and maybe one or two others to come in we don't look in bad shape.

Crap weather today which i thought reflected in the play, however, we did bomb 3 or 4 chances within the opposition 5mtr line which we need to convert to try's to get on.

Difficult conditions to play rugby in (it was bad enough standing watching) and we didn't quite have our tactics right in the 1st half. Forcing our play a bit too much instead of being a little more patient but overall it was decent performance given the conditions. The speed of the ruck is something that we'll have to get use to it seems. Very slow at times and a lot of messing about allowed which would be penalised in SL.

Pleasing crowd of 4891, with only 30 or so brave dedicated souls from Haven. Hopefully we can push for a 5k average if we can perform well at home.

Comfortable win in poor conditions. Seemed to be that some of our fans think we should be scoring off every play at this level. It was never a game for expansive rugby, yet i heard numerous moaning about us no getting it out quick enough, and we need to spread it out, even when we were in our own 20.

If anything i thought we were too expansive in first half causing a lot of errors.

Sidlow's offloading killed them. Pitts had a great game, and surely Gaskell will be the best player in the league if he stays fit.

Haven weren't bad at all and could have scored some more points. Never looked like they were going to win though, or get near our line without getting a penalty or getting a Bulls error.

Fev next week will be a tough one. Hopefully drier conditions will suit us. Interesting to see how their pitch looks.

If we do push for 5K can I recommend that they get some change. At 2:45 the only cash turnstile at the rear of the stadium was nearly closed by the young girl manning it as she was about to leave to get some change. Nobody seemed to think that if the price was £22 then a lot of people would present £25 or £30 and expect change. So the man in front of me had the privilege of waiting in the queue for 15 mins only to be told he could not enter as he did not have the correct change.

£22 to stand on an open terrace in a freezing downpour to watch the mighty Whitehaven is ambitious.

Right. Except that most BULLS fans come to watch THE BULLS. Hard to grasp, I know.

Well I enjoyed yesterday but I do have a problem.

Our new seats give us a great view but behind us there are SIX moaners - yes SIX - and feed off one another too...

Yesterday they moaned for 70 of the 80 - here is a list of what is wrong;

Chev is bald
Chev is a blob
Chev cant tackle
Chev is useless
Clock doesn't work
New programme is stupid
Matty Blye is the invisible man
Harry Siejka is useless
Harry Siejka cant kick for toffee
Dale Ferguson is the invisible man
The pie van has gone
The new pie van is crap
Ryan Shaw can't catch
Ryan Shaw isn't a full back
Free hot drink is stupid

Its going to be a long season if every home game is like this!

A what?

Well thats what they called him - a blob


"Supporters" who do nothing but moan - weird!

Oh and our ball handling skills were crap too - never mind how cold it was..

Personally I found the free hot drink very very welcome!

There were some encouraging stuff yesterday, and some that leave a little nagging worry. But hopefully the latter will be sorted out with time.
Encouraging as always were Gaskell, O'Brien, Pitts and Sidlow. I thought Mullaney went well too, especially considering the eye injury. The fact he came back on later to play 7 for a bit tells me that he'll be ok and he'll be playing there if Siejka does cop a ban.
I'm less impressed with Tahraoui as some others are though, it seems to me that his defence is a little shaky if you don't run directly at him. But hopefully that's just the step up to full time needing some time to adjust, as he put in a fair amount of minutes yesterday. Siejka too continues to worry me as he made a lot of daft errors yesterday, and with the lack of real halfback competition, there's no-one banging on the door to replace him. But again, hopefully that will improve with time and a few Lowes b*llockings.

I notice in the T&A article this morning, it mentioned the Bulls are going to contest the two disciplinaries. Must say I'm quite surprised by that.