Yep, he's shown up well against us, that's for sure. Whenever I've seen him play well he's always been very aggressive but never done anything with the type of calculated malice that would cause serious injury. The game would be poorer if no-one played it in that spirit.

Not suggesting that at all but to read Bateman on twitter and when you hear him speak the lad is clearly not the brightest (which isn't a criticism as I'm not a straight A's man myself) but that doesn't translate itself on the pitch. He plays with a coolness and seems to just have a natural instinct for playing the game. I watch some players and can't believe how dumb they can be on the field but not this kid.

As for Joel, I fully agree. All I've been saying at the games these past two weeks is 'I can't wait to see him back at second row'. He looks so threatening with the ball and is clearly not the same player that came back. He'll be huge for us at second row I reckon.

He is a lightweight back rower with aspirations of being the hard man. Good player mind.

showed ferres how to play the other night.

slack defence from lunt/mullally to let him stroll through to set up the winning try on friday

Like Wilkin. But Wilkin is average at best.

Bateman is deceptively strong. Very difficult to put down and very strong in defence.

One of the worst things to come our of a gross mismanagement is seeing our homegrown talent such as Bateman, Whitehead, Wardle doing so well for other clubs.

Bateman has the potential to be anything he wants in the game .

Didn't seem to bother you when you were doing it to others - excuse me if my heart doesn't bleed.

Erm...Okkaaayyy

Vastman, I'm not sure what you're getting at? All I said it was gutting seeing our homegrown talent that we had developed playing for other clubs. Not sayin we don't deserve it as we did as we entered admin..twice.

Don't get your point about Bradford going into Kirklees Wakefield area etc clubs don't just sign players who play for a club in their town. So by your logic only players whi play for a club in Cumbria should be developed by Cumbrian club. If Bradford hadn't have done the awful deed of picking up Jamie Peacock from the Leeds area, he may never have had an RL career.

I wasn't moaning about losing players, far from it, my point was, as a fan, that's that worst outcome of our financial troubles, hurts even more than relegation, but we fully deserved what we got.

Anyway don't want to derail the thread. It's originally about playing ability of John Bateman.

If only those players had been left alone to sign for the supremely well-run Wakefield Trinity Wildcats, what with their outstanding record for doing things like developing young players, delivering on-field success, investing in facilities, paying tax bills, etc.....

Off field I agree, however on field we have a decent record developing players, couldn't really complain about people pinching them if we hadn't could I Mr Thicky. Even now Bradford have 3 Trinity products in their ranks, all 3 of whom are at the better end of what they have (Pitts, Ferguson and Wallshaw). However in fairness it was their methods at under 15 that annoyed me most.

Alas the irony, we are talking Bradford here - the former posters boys of SL that wallies like you used to hold up as a shining light of the modern game - so please don't lecture me about Wakefield's well documented inadequacies off pitch, we are paragons of virtue by comparison to the team who's success was totally built on sand.

Let's hope we can lure out Smokey, Laurie and the other usual suspects, should be a laugh - You lot are pure comedy gold.

How's Ferguson's England international career going Vastpants?