I dont think i will live that long!!

They might have to hire a mini bus instead of a normal taxi for the fans that come over to Odsal

I see Macca is carrying on with his innovative training techniques.



Although I have to admit, what relevance a fear of flying,heights or water , has to a rugby match escapes me at the moment

I know that mick, was the sarcasm in my post a bit too subtle?

I have been a big critic of McNamara at Bradford but I have a feeling that he might not pan out as bad as many are making for England. I think he'll be quite happy being written off as a coach and could well surprise the likes of Australia and NZ. Can't see us winning the series but it would be nice to break our long run of defeats Down Under against NZ in particular... I'm sure he'll have seen things done by Smith that he'll have wanted to do differently on previous tours, and he's got a good support group (including Brian Smith).

On a lighter note, who will inherit the colouring-in duties?

Excellent article from Connor rlHERErl.

TBH, I think that McNamara, for all the bagging he's had off the fans, still cares about the Bulls and has done us a favour by leaving out any Bradford players from the internationals, just like he did when he left Scruton out earlier in the year.

There's 8 new guys, with possibly 4 more to come, plus 2 new coaches including a brand new head coach coming in for 2011. The team will need time to gel and get used to the new coach's way of doing things. And the less players away on international duty, the sooner the team can get together and get it together for the new season

I enjoyed Conner's analysis there. He makes a good point that a bloke so into his stats like McNamara seems to make an odd decision to leave out Lynch.

Better for us though!

I thought his other point was spot on too. He's picked players from in-form teams rather than in-form players.

On the stats, there is always the argument that the players selected from other teams are equally as good as Lynch but their work is being shared by other players. To be honest though I thought he wasn't picked due to injury.

Possibly. But then from what I hear McNamara likes his stats. Apparently Rikki Sheriffe was signed partly because he was supposed to have the best stats for yards gained from dummy half or something obscure like that!

IMO Lynch is one of the top 4 British props in SL. However he has carried the team a lot this year and a break will do him good. Next year with Hargreaves and Elima coming in he should have some work taken off his shoulders too.

Where did you compile the evidence for either of those spurious assumptions?

As a neutral, I couldn't agree more. He's tough and take the ball up time and time again, really winning the yards. I've liked him for a while.

I watched him in a SL game t'other month and then came on here. When I questioned why he wasn't getting more votes for man of the match, one poster replied that he plays that well every week, so people probably take him for granted.

A better bet than griffin and even the rejuvinated Fielden, imo.

I see he's plumped for Widdop at fullback, with Brown at 6 and Tomkins at 7. Griffin STARTS!

Team:
Widdop
Briscoe
Shenton
Atkins
Hall
Brown
S Tomkins
Morley
Roby
Griffin
Ellis
Burgess
O'Loughlin
SUBS (from)
Robinson
Crabtree
J Tomkins
Westwood
Harrison
Cudjoe

Presumably Cudjoe & Harrison will be the ones to drop out there. No point having a winger on the bench and no point having Tomkins, Westwood AND Harrison, so one of those would be out.