I should think almost half the crowd was from Bradford. I fear for your future but wish you the best of luck.

Still nobody has made a comment about the members lounge. This was a key area that was cited in the reasons for moving.
If, as has been claimed, Bradford brought close to 200, then the club will be lucky to get close to 1,000 for York.

[iWas surprised to see Pallumbo at Centre. And playing a Hooker (Parata) at Loose Forward, is that unusual?[/i.

Thats is not normal, unless you
a) have a lot of Injuries so you have to play folks out of position or
b) have a coach who is out of his depth

I'll let the good folks of the forum draw the conclusions on which of the above are applicable

Re option b, I'm totally out of my depth to comment on that!

From the 21 man squad, three backs didn't make the 17, so I guess that was the reason (I'm assuming Pallumbo doesn't play that position unless in emergencies). As I learnt with Lovell, Centre and Second Row aren't entirely unrelated. I'm trying to imagine Bill Beaumont moving to Centre in Union!

I'm interested in the best way to use Parata and Gahan together. The latter looked fairly physical today, so I wonder if it makes sense to stick him out next to the winger when defending. I think both need to play, but where is the question.

Nah......
Loose forward/second rows in league, slot nicely into the 12 shirt in union (Burgess/Farrell). Other than that, it was mainly backs who crossed the divide either way, with Roger Tuivasa-Sheck jumping from FB at league to 12 in Union
The exception to the rule was the greatest cross coder of all time, Brad Thorn.......lock/2nd row in both codes and he has World Cup medals in both to prove it.

Ok on crowd numbers I’d say that 551 could be true. It’s difficult what’s to see on the top tier so who knows.
Bradford brought surprisingly few in my opinion. Less than last year.
From what I see it was mainly paying attendees rather than local Rl clubs etc.
My Pie was there. No takers when I went past. I wonder if £9 I is just too much. I confess to walking by and goingfor the hot dog option.
Merchandise was on sale in the club shop as I could see when I went behind the South stand but to my surprise one had to access the shop prior to or after the game. Gawd knows where the entrance is none of the stewards could assist. A sale lost. LB really aren’t making it easy for themselves.
As to the game- it’s not the fact we were yet again spanked at home in front of an exponentially decreasing crowd that is the worry it is that this is pretty close to what we can expect as our first 13 (not sure about the bench-looked weak). They tried hard and defended well ( OMs point about this catching up on them at the end of the game is well made. and Crucially they were competitive for a significant part of the match. In fact, for the 5 minutes before half time and the first 15/ 20 of the second they were the better side but did not weary the scoreboard. Clearly Coates’ reputation as a kicker has taken a potentially terminal knock but for a brief moment I thought we might win. Bradford are a very, very big side and have a couple of very good players but they aren’t unbeatable. it’s brute strength rather than flair. Ultimately we just weren’t good enough despite this being easily our best performance. Gahan, Moceidreke and Parata looked lively. Ulberg has something. Williams was our best interchange. I just don’t see where the win will come from. Other sides are better than they were. We are weaker. I think it’s reasonable to fear we may be relegated. Others will remember that Swinton gave it a good go against many teams last year but faded at the end of games and mostly lost. They were relegated. We definitely need a few Championship level players now before it’s too late. York just beat Newcastle in the Cup easily. I don’t fancy our chances much. 0-6. Some re-launch@ gettheimportantstuffright.