Neither side was dominant in the ruck, nor on the edges. One side scored 5 tries on the set after a penalty, the other 1 or 2 tries. Without the pens, the game would have been something like 6-6.

A key issue for me was Bradford stepping forward off the mark all through the game and delaying the PTB - both illegal and both designed to extract penalties. And it worked - the ref and Broncos got schooled.

I agree with Ronnie on this. Part of any team turning their home ground into a fortress is that the fans go some way towards intimidating the ref. That won't happen here, plus given the fact that referees will always shaft us on the penalty count effectively reduces any home advantage

Bradford often played quicker that was the problem for LB.

we have 600 fans. these loyal fans will make noise but it will be lost in a stadium that can host 8 times that number. Interesting that we made plans to leave the stoop because we were only filling 18% of the stadium on match day.......now we're in a stadium 1/3 the size and only filling 12% of it.....Progress

Colley boy sorry mate but I have not got a clue what game you were watching.
Look at the tackle technique, virtually every time we were tackled we ended up facing our own line and or on the back. Look at our tackle technique the Bradford players invariably ended up on there knees facing our line that means we are losing the ruck in both attack and defence, and that results in Penalties against.
Give over trying to blame the refs only people that give Penalties away are the players.

I was watching a game with perhaps 4 breaks. Neither team looked likely to score unless starting a set after a penalty. Completely contrary to you, Micky, I felt that we wrestled much better than Bradford who relied more on floppers. The difference, as usual, was that the oppo were more composed at 6, 7 and 9.

Here's a question: would you swap our 6, 7 and 9 for theirs or would you swap middle units? I'd take Gaskell et al. And the ref of course!

Yawn.....they won mainly because they were better than us, once we ran outa steam, which we have been doing ALL season against the better teams.

To be fair I don't think they were that much better than us - but they had a bit more savvy and played the ref like an old violin. As I have printed on a tshirt 'youth and skill are no match for age and treachery'!

My honest opinion on the game as a whole! Bradford played to there strengths, the ptb was much quicker and they dominated us in the ruck.
We lost direction on the park soon as Hendo came off..its hard to win a game without the ball, we gave it away 14 times and probably conceded 30 mtrs on every one of those 14 occasions.

It was the same last year, we never learnt to play the ref, commit an offence like holding down once can be seen as testing the ref, twice ok laziness 3-4-5 just plain stupid.

as soon as we learn that quick ptb gets results we will start improving, tackle technique to control the ruck in defence earns you the right to have that little extra time to set your defence.
And don't bloody argue decisions even if you think it's wrong, ref is never gonna change his mind because you are in his face, aka 40/20 suck it up and get on with it.

Couldn't disagree more with this post. God knows we're a long way from the finished article and Bradford are clearly, on their day, a better team than us. But this really wasn't their day - even after they'd been given countless ball on the bad of some decidedly dodgy refereeing decisions. When the penalties started coming they started scoring - often after we'd successfully held them out for more than one set. Given that the decisions came after such bad (let's call them bad, other words do spring to mind) calls I'm not sure what you're expecting from our team. Eventually, a side as good as Bradford are going to get through your defence. I therefore don't blame the players for conceding, even the softer tries, on the bad of bad refereeing calls. Yes, yes, you need to get on with it and try and keep them out if you can, but I think it's poor form to highlight our deficiencies on those occasions, and not acknowledge a far bigger factor of the lame-brain decision that immediately preceded it.

I actually thought we did well to stay in the game as long as we did, to not collapse immediately before half time also when I can't remember us having the ball at all! I was hopeful that the second half refereeing couldn't be as bad so we had a chance. But actually it was worse and THAT more than any other factor in the game is why we didn't give them a closer game. There are plenty of times where it's easy to hide behind the refereeing decisions as hiding a bad performance. For once this really isn't one of those times!! Wise up people, we did ok in the circumstances. It's only a game of course, but we don't have to look inward on this one. We were done, it wasn't right but I'm also not suggesting some malevolent conspiracy either. Hopefully it won't happen again, but if we have to apportion blame let's at least get it right this time.

Have to say that I agree with the view that we are a far better team with Hendo on the field. It's not that he produces anything special, it's just that he talks and harries his teammates. I am amazed that we don't have another player who can do this. We are lazy and without direction when he's off the field.

Bad decisions from the Ref that got worse, which game did you watch? The issue is LB could not handle the quick play the ball and were more often than not lazy in their tackle technique. Referees do not lose games only players.

Daft dad well said, at least you were watching same game as me.

Yes first time this year.

Good you made it down mate, you gonna see how we get on against Leigh or you had enough pain?