To make the WCC match a more even contest by giving the away team a preparatory match in similar conditions.

As far as I'm concerned the Superleague fixture list hasn't been disrupted by this match, it's been disrupted by the weather. I'm happy we're playing this match regardless of whether 3,000 or 10,000 turn up and I couldn't care less what anyone from Bradford thinks. Since when did they ever care about our club?

PoD, the simple fact is that the Bulls game would have been played today if you weren't taking on Manly in a friendly.

The previous two WCCs saw the Aussie side play National League opposition with the European game's flagship competition uninterrupted.

Why should the Bulls give a flying ---- about Quinze?

Leeds opponents next week could say the same, as could Wigans opponents later in the season when they get there pitch grassed.

Just accept its gone.

Newsflash: The Wigan-Wakefield and Leeds-Celtic games were played!

So...what was the attendance?
Was it a sell out?

I don't know what the attendance was, I'd say the LV and Etihad stands were both 2/3's full, so work it out from that

I know I'm gutted, 14-0 up after 15 minutes, 20-0 up at half-time, then lose 26-34. That last fifteen minutes or so was such a come-down from the excitement of the first half. At one point I thought Purdham's two missed conversions (easy ones) might have mattered, but the gap was obviously larger than that

attendence was said to be 6032.
iirc.

Showpiece!

The show piece is on Sun! Hope you enjoyed your trial match anyway. Winning the proper match is much better though!

And ours wasn't because of the weather, not becasue of our game with manly. The cold snap could just as easily have occured this weekend instead of two weeks ago.

So 2 times 3000 means they're not aggrieved?



It was a belting game by the way, allowing for the lopsided effects of the two teams' different approach to use of substitutes.

I did wonder whether there was some sort of pre-match agreement to send fans of both teams home happy. It also featured on Sky's 9.30 round-up tonight, but I note that while they said that we scored our tries past Manly's reserve grade, the fact that they scored all theirs against our reserve grade wasn't mentioned. And at least we got one in the second half!

The fact we played an experimental side in the second half seems to have been overlooked in every single report I've seen.

BAILEY Chris
BALLIN Matt
CUTHBERTSON Adam
FORAN Kieran
HALL Glenn
HODKINSON Trent
KING Jason
L’ESTRANGE Heath
LYON Jamie
MATAI Steve
MORWOOD Phil
NEUMANN Shane
ORFORD Matt
PERRY Josh
ROBERTSON Michael
RODNEY Shane
ROSE George
STEWART Brett
STEWART Glenn
SUNIULA Andrew
WAEREA-HARGREAVES Jared
WATMOUGH Anthony
WILLIAMS David


I believe that these players sent over hardly contain any of Manly's reserve grade. A few may not have played first grade, yet, but are still in the first grade squad.

How did Kieran Foran go? He may play first grade this year at five-eighth.

If he was playing in the first half, and you are expecting in-field kicking from him, don't expect to much, Manly's kicking game in the first half was awful imo.

Interestingly, the crowd was a shade over half the 11,926 that attended a similar challenge match your club played on the eve of the 1981 Challenge Cup Final. The opponents? The champion Braford Northern side.

Shame the Bulls don't get crowds like that anymore

Bradford Bulls, living in the past.

too true......it's just like it is on heartbeat

The programme didn't give player numbers for Manly, so we had to guess or rely on recognition. If your guy was the rather tall one with fair hair (may have been no. 21), his tactical kicking was dire.

EDIT: I'd better expand a bit on this. For starters I'm not sure it was the same guy doing all the kicking, let's assume it was. He put up a few very high bombs but Jon Wells had no problems dealing with them (unlike in the second half where one of Orford's had him confidently waiting for it to drop, only for him to realise that it actually going to fall a couple of yards behind him. It was quite funny to watch.). Back to the first half kicking. Nearly all the tactical kicks went pretty much directly to a defender and caused no problems at all. And the ones that didn't, about 3, went well dead. Something obviously wasn't working for the guy because, after the last one dribbled over the dead ball line, he held his head in his hands.

Thank you. This is the way to pack the Stoop - play Bradford every week in a friendly. Mind you, having been at that game in '81 I'd settle for a similar performance.

Oh that champion Braford (sic) Northern side that left the Cottage well beaten by a champion Fulham side!

Your memory's playing tricks on you, old timer.

[url=http://www.rlhalloffame.org.uk/1980.htm1980-81 tables[/url

That links to the 79-80 tables...

I notice Bradford Northern won the First Division that year too.

Do you know Rooster if Shane Neumann is any relation to Louie Neumann who played for Leeds in the 60's?