Gale - looked encouraging, injured
Purtell - looked encouraging, injured
Lulia - arrived late, injured, missed pre-season and badly lacking match fitness
Pryce - signed late, injured
Manase - injured in pre-season
Kear - arrived after international duty and hernia op, missed pre-season and looks light

I'm not defending Potter but the above situiation must be a nightmare. You identify the weaknesses in the squad, sign the players quite early in a number of cases and end up with at least 2/3 of the backline missing pre-season and the other 1/3 injured in the first 3 games. We wouldn't have won but both our defensive and attacking structure went to pot after Gale went off on sunday.

There's some sort of curse on us with injuries. Is the new training complex built on a native american burial ground or something?

M@islebugs is of course entirely right, and as I'd said and repeated, with a reasonably fair wind it would have taken (IMHO) at least a couple of months for the side to properly gel and get used to each other. An average number of usual injuries would be par for the course but this is worse than average.

Curiously though it does seem that most of the other teams, Saints apart, are also experiencing a weird surge of significant injuries. There have been some horrible injuries reported this weekend.

Doesn't help me understand why the defence can go from the Alamo to Night of the Zombies, though. If it is nearer to Battle of the Zombies at Belle Vue then we may be better placed. Another good omen is that if we're only defending alternate games this year, this week is our week "on" so I have more than one valid reason for optimism.

Pryce is fit now is he not? As for Manoukafoa, i would'nt be surprised if he takes Joseph's bench spot for the Wakefield game .

We do seem to have an history of signing players whilst they are injured dont we ? It was known Kear needed a hernia op, Pryce is never fit, and wasnt one of the new centres out injured when he was announced. Even when we struck lucky with Hape and Vainikolo they had missed full terms the season prior and kearney when signed had missed 80% of the campaign . Where do we do our scouting sydney rehab clinic !

While i agree it's not ideal, Hull KR seem to be doing just fine without their two half backs, and they've probably got more injuries than us.

They drew 36 all with Saints. We lost 54 - 16 (again) That team was by far good enough to give Wigan a game

Exactly, week on week we listen to excuse after excuse...we've pulled it apart time and again. The problem has got to lie with the current coaching staff and the head coach...The squad on paper should be capable of making the top 8, even with injuries..

Its just not happening with Potter at the helm lets face it. A defeat at Wakefield this Saturday would surely be the final straw? i really hope he (Potter) proves me wrong, sincerely.

But like somebody said on another thread i think,

Its not potters fault with all the errors that are being made on the field and the penalties the players give away which leads to losing field position, you cant blame potter for:- tackling players in the air, holding down, knock ons, forward passes. not finding touch with a penalty or infact when a player gets injured,

Yes potter may of had a game plan but when a PLAYER misses a tackle and other players have to compensate for this it leave gaps ie. Crookes coming accross to stop richards then the ball being passed back over where crookes was no where to be seen,

Personally and this is only my OPINION but wigan made us look that bad cos on the day they really were that good, wigan are a fast team and have learnt how to have a fast play the ball and that is what run us ragged from breaking the line and us having to compensate out of position.

If that makes sense ha

Well the players we have seemed to do ok in other teams, i.e Hargreaves at Saints, Diskin at Leeds, Platt at Castleford, Sykes at London, Kear at Crusaders etc...

Maybe i am jumping the gun and we indeed have been unfortunate to have come across 2 of the top 4 already in Wigan and Catalans? we'll see on Saturday night.

I dont understand people saying 'on paper' we should be able to compete even with injuries. If you look on paper, we are poor imo. Who is proven to be at a level where we can compete with the likes of wigan? I look through our team/ squad and would say Kearney maybe, Whitehead maybe, Koppy maybe just. Heath I think is, Disko is, but the others you really have to question. I think they could enough, but they have to go out and PROVE it.

He'll no doubt fancy a supposed weak team like Wakey. The injured again for Wire, HKR & Saints, back for Salford.

From memory Lulia pulled up injured a month is after we signed him. We do seem to be jinxed with injuries last few seasons though.

Seeing Gale go down on Saturday was just galling. They had looked fairly well organised with him on the field both in attack and defence but you're right, once he went off it all went to pot.

It's symptomatic of a recent disease that has plagued the Bulls. They are obviously given a strict gameplan before heading out on the field and are often pretty well equipped to carry that out. However, something changes to affect circumstances on the pitch or the make-up of the team, they seem completely unable to adapt.

Most of them lack the ability to think on their feet so just tend to panic when a spanner is thrown in the works - as they did when Gale went off. They went from a team unit to 13 individuals doing 13 different things. You can't fault Sammut for his effort but his struggles in the organisational role encapsulated this problem.

Coming back to the injuries, can it be mere coincidence? I'm not a believer in luck so is there something the Bulls could do better in preparation to prevent this problem recurring year after year?

The familiar argument is that these are impact injuries rather than soft tissue injuries so can't be prevented but is that strictly true? Are the players going into contact unprepared because they aren't fit enough to front up to physically superior players? Is their tackle technique putting undue strain on joints, bones and ligaments? Whatever the case, the coaching staff should be seeking answers because they can't keep playing the plucky losers - bad luck is only an excuse in isolated incidences, not over the course of a full season.

You've got to worry about modern day SL players.

The number of injuries that are being suffered and more importantly, the number of long term injuries that are being suffered seems to get worse year after year.

How many players are out long term after 3 games?