Alker has never been a good hooker, great tackling machine and whenever moved into back row can run a good line and split a defence. However his distribution from acting half is pedestrian and he handles the ball like a brick. Should have introduced a quality hooker years ago either by giveing Cloughy or Turner a good run at that position.

BIG PHILL IS TO SLOW AND DOESNT LOOK FIT

Agree with you on that, just seems to have lost that spark, think Jewwit needs to be given a chance next week, bit more aggression, but hopefully no penalties!!!!!!

Hopefully a better crowd too. Last night was again signifcantly down on last season (4,383).

I think weather and a decline in the Bulls crowd had a bit to do with that - in no way condoning our support numbers, but that must be the lowest Bradford travelling contingent at the Willows for some years?

Got to say I doubt we'll win if we don't start to get the forwards hitting the ball with real pace and agression and winning the contact, was making a mental note of the sheer amount of times we got tackeld on our backs and Bradford were on thier fronts.

I'm also not convinced Houldsworth is a scrum half, thought Matty Smith looked pretty decent from what i've seen (any clues why he wasnt even on the bench last night?), think the positional kicking needs to be done by Houldsworth as last night was the first time in years we have made real ground when kicking for touch from hand, let Stef kick closer to the line as his high ball is 2nd to none and let Houldsworth use his seige gun kicks to clear the lines better, wouldnt mind seeing when kicking from deep if we could get the ball dead in goal as then you have that little respite and time to form a line and stop any early breaks.