Players stop trying when they believe their effort is pointless week after week. It is utterly demoralising and takes leadership to rally people in that situation. Lack of effort is a subsidiary problem stemming from the main problem, the squad is extremely poor.

There are three main reasons for this. The first is obviously the financial shambles impacting upon the club over the last 4 years and more recently the loss of key players.

The second one is that the players the club have signed are worse than the ones they replaced ie Adam Henry. Keeping Walker and Foster and releasing other players looks like a mistake, although difficult to quantify given the financial mess.

The third is that a number of key forwards have gone backwards. Sidlow, Nas, Olbison, Addy appear to have lost weight/size and have considerably less impact than in previous seasons.

To suggest the current problems are down to a lack of effort is simplistic. Effort collapses where there is no hope. It has been evident for months that the players didn't believe in Cummins and turned up waiting to get beat.

An important question is how we can display our ideas and team strengths to the rest when we feel we must proceed with caution and realise whast needs to be done for the future .

You mean me, the physcology of sport ls an infinitly difficult subject, you have used a contrast between the England approach and Chile's, I'll provide you with another ,the Ivory Coast game, they were poor and losing until Didier Drogba was introduced, it was like a completely different team and they scored 2 goals within 10 minutes

Now RL is an even more difficult sport to quantify as the physical aspect of the game is much more intense and involved, football doesnt have the level of physical competition that RL has

The ability to instill confidence and belief into a sportsman is incredibly difficult as is shown by the wages paid to the top coaches, in football we currently have Jose Mourinho who posseses that special something , Brian Clough was able to make average players perform to much higher levels as explained when some of these players left to play for other clubs

In RL Alex Murphy was able to instill confidence like no other coach, Ian Millward took a bunch of no hopers at Leigh and turned round the whole club, then improved a team full of quality at Saints, failed miserably at Wigan

That something ' special ' is what everybody is trying to find, but finding it is the hard part

And we of course had Sir Peter Fox so we have seen water turned into wine first hand, well, at least the ancients did.

All you say is perfectly valid but the comment that it was ridiculous toaccuse any player of lack of effort is ridiculous itself. I'd accept that lack of other things such as confidence and self-belief are contributory factors but none of them stop a player busting a gut till the final whistle. And we can see from the terraces whether he does or whether he doesn't.

I should point out that this year we were apparently the first team ever to employ a permanent resident sports psychology shrink so it isn't as if th club exactly overlooked the psychology side. The question would be, WTF happened there?

I suspect we would win the league if it was decided by falling backwards off chairs into the arms of team mates.

Psychology is only going to work if players buy into it and also accept that the team's aims are achievable. The goal for the Bulls this season would be "avoid relegation" (which in itself isn't much of a positive). From a starting point of -6 points, a decimated squad and all the early season uncertainty it would have to be someone special to change minds. The overriding attitude this season has been one of resignation. There's no excuse for not trying but you can see the reason why it seems pointless to go out and bust a gut.

Meanwhile Wakefield beat Wigan. But hey we put same amount of effort as they did according to Starbug.

So... the Championship aye.

And beat them without Sammut... But with 4 loan signings in the starting 13 -- Gilmour Riley Owen and Smith.

Bulls debate on BBC Radio Leeds NOW. www.bbc.co.uk/radioleeds

Bulls debate on BBC Radio Leeds NOW. www.bbc.co.uk/radioleeds

I can't. Until very recently, going out and busting a gut would have kept each of these players in a SL squad.

Sammut can't get in the team under the new coach seemingly. I like Sammut, I know he has his moments but he can turn a game.
The reason we beat Wigan (and some dubious ref. calls) was due to one thing - the team wanted to win and played as a team for the first time this season. Also the return of Tim Smith has been greatly influential in the last two games! Yes he is a loan player but I think you will see him at Wakefield after this season.

:3vrlxxle
Well, it's a fair point FA, but [and without getting into caveats and non sequiturs again



it depends largely on whether the players had belief and confidence, both in themselves and in their colleagues. To me, the one thing which is clear is they didn't.'"

The biggest blunder Cummins & co made were telling the players too many times which games we were targeting for wins. IMO all this did was put in the lads head was that the coach had no confiedence in them so why bother. So once the rut had set in when games we stood a chance of winning came up we were still in why bother mode.

There are loan signings then there are LOAN signings.

In Smith case he's a LOAN signing in that he has rejoined a club he never wanted to leave and the only one he's ever been really happy at from a club he just didn't fit into - a LOAN in name only.

I very much see Owen as a Wakey lad who started well at Cas then lost his way - these are players Wakefield have a real reputation for resurrecting the careers of these types of players.

Gilmour a gap filler.

Riley, I'd like to keep him tbh.

So they may be loans but they are proving their value which is all you can ask for.

That was when I first felt it was [ireally[/i unlikely we were going to hang on - though losing half our competition money the year before didn't help either. It just seems to have been one thing on top of another over the last couple of years with every little 'snip' biting away at our self confidence - and that's just the fans, so I can only imagine how it's been for those who depend on the club for a living.

So does anybody know what our resident shrink makes of it all, if indeed we still have one? Or is that just another mystery doomed to disappear forever without trace in the Odsal fog with the rest?

Short answer is no. I think his appointment was a bit like those 'sprint coaches' who turn up at the the start of the season but then disappear with a bit less fanfare than they got when they arrived.

To be fair you would not expect a "sprint coach" to hang around

Ha, indeed!!

With regard to the psychologist, I wondered if he was maybe a fan who had offered his services. Maybe trying to build his practice?

He was/is indeed [url=http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/sport/10757182.Mind_guru_aims_to_help_Bradford_Bulls_on_and_off_the_pitch/a Bulls fan[/url, and as he's from Dewsbury that rings true, and according to one [url=http://www.maudsleylearning.com/events/speakers/allan-johnson/profile[/url he still works for us.

Well, he was stood in the dugout on Friday night. So I would think he still works for us.

Things could be worse, then.