[Bulliac]

Re: Recruitment 2016 Rumours & Signings.. : Mon Jul 13, 2015 9:07 am  

No, the majority said players should have been 'rested' against the weaker teams not teams in and around the top four.

We are left now with, imo, too many players who are not match fit or unavailable due to being on long term loan. Fine, I'll support the team to the last, but I don't think that is the best position in which to enter the eights and it's a position which was wholly avoidable [imo].

Re: Recruitment 2016 Rumours & Signings.. : Mon Jul 13, 2015 10:26 am  

el red wrote:

It really does astound me that fans can be this fickle. The majority asked for players to be rested and when they are and you lose... You then say he should keep the strongest team out there. As soon as the 8's start everyone is on 0 points, the time leading into it is not when you should play your best rugby. The fans need to stay strong and reserve judgement until after the season ends. If half the buildings in the world had support as strong as you're showing then there would be a lot of flat cities.

Yeh our fans are very fickle, buying close to 4k season tickets despite a price increase and relegation from SL.

Supporters are confused why we have Ferres signing up a big squad, which suggested to most that we intended to rotate the squad against the lower sides to ensure our 1st choice 17 were hopefully fit and relatively fresh for the middle 8's. But our head coach has openly admitted he isn't a believer in resting players and barring injury his best players will play each week. Now obviously a squad will always have some players that aren't going to be playing but it seems crazy the situation we're now in. The team is out of form and look lethargic. If they're not tired then is it a poor attitude? Who knows but Lowes isn't finding the answers right now and he is fast running out of time to get the side looking capable of a serious attempt at promotion.

We have no choice but to back him and try and trust his judgement for now, but I'm genuinely worried that we haven't given ourselves the best possible chance of promotion. Marc Green will have a big job selling a similar amount of season tickets at this year's prices if we go into the 8's and put in similar performances and Lowes remains in charg for 2015.

Jimmy is probably my favourite player in a Bulls shirt but we can't be sentimental if he isn't getting the best from the squad.

Re: Recruitment 2016 Rumours & Signings.. : Mon Jul 13, 2015 10:49 am  

el red wrote:

As soon as the 8's start everyone is on 0 points, the time leading into it is not when you should play your best rugby.

Of course it should be, why wouldn't you want to be heading into the most important period of the season hitting or in peak form?

Probably the dumbest sentence ever written on this forum, ever.

Re: Recruitment 2016 Rumours & Signings.. : Mon Jul 13, 2015 12:25 pm  

el red wrote:

It really does astound me that fans can be this fickle. The majority asked for players to be rested and when they are and you lose... You then say he should keep the strongest team out there.

The time to rest players was earlier in the season against the lower sides, not against the team in third. We should have rested players against Hunslet and had our strongest team out against Sheffield, but for some reason we didn't do that.

As soon as the 8's start everyone is on 0 points, the time leading into it is not when you should play your best rugby.

It is, though. The performances should improve over the course of the season as the squad gels more and the coach imprints his style on the team. You then go into the 8s on the back of good performances and full of confidence. Our performances are actually getting worse, but we've missed Gaskell sorely in the last month.

Re: Recruitment 2016 Rumours & Signings.. : Mon Jul 13, 2015 2:22 pm  

Not sure if this has been mentioned before but ...
rumour is a winger/full back signed from Batley.

Re: Recruitment 2016 Rumours & Signings.. : Mon Jul 13, 2015 3:23 pm  

If you played the best game of the season against Leigh next Sunday then you are in trouble.

Lets say you get promoted from the Middle 8's but have been beaten in the regular season by Leigh (twice), Sheffield, Fev & Fax. Who on here would give a stuff, I certainly wouldn't.

Obviously in the Cup Wigan 'peaked' a week too early, I don't hear the KR fans bleating too much about a 60 point flogging now.

In an ideal world, yes you would slowly peak as you get towards the 8 but as everyone has said, when have you actually had your first choice 17 out there. And if you think your coach doesn't know who the top 17-19 players are by now then you are kidding yourselves.

I think you will get promoted, this year or next. Leigh have been building for 3 years now and even though we all hate them, they do play some good stuff that puts them in the driving seat amongst Championship teams.

At the start of the season you said you wanted to be in the top 2, and with 2 games left thats exactly where you'll finish. Everything from now on in is merely prologue, its the final sentence of the story of the season which will define the year.

Grab a beer and prepare for a nervy ride over the next couple of months.

Re: Recruitment 2016 Rumours & Signings.. : Mon Jul 13, 2015 3:52 pm  

I wanted to finish in 2nd place back when we were basing our hopes on the old playoff table. Second place was genuinely the more favourable!
I guess that's why they changed it, and now we will have to beat our key promotion rivals away from home if we have any aspirations of getting promoted. Not impossible, but home ties would have made things far easier.

Re: Recruitment 2016 Rumours & Signings.. : Mon Jul 13, 2015 4:04 pm  

Bully_Boxer wrote:

Yeh our fans are very fickle, buying close to 4k season tickets despite a price increase and relegation from SL.

Supporters are confused why we have Ferres signing up a big squad, which suggested to most that we intended to rotate the squad against the lower sides to ensure our 1st choice 17 were hopefully fit and relatively fresh for the middle 8's. But our head coach has openly admitted he isn't a believer in resting players and barring injury his best players will play each week. Now obviously a squad will always have some players that aren't going to be playing but it seems crazy the situation we're now in. The team is out of form and look lethargic. If they're not tired then is it a poor attitude? Who knows but Lowes isn't finding the answers right now and he is fast running out of time to get the side looking capable of a serious attempt at promotion.

We have no choice but to back him and try and trust his judgement for now, but I'm genuinely worried that we haven't given ourselves the best possible chance of promotion. Marc Green will have a big job selling a similar amount of season tickets at this year's prices if we go into the 8's and put in similar performances and Lowes remains in charg for 2015.

Jimmy is probably my favourite player in a Bulls shirt but we can't be sentimental if he isn't getting the best from the squad.

I think the main reason we signed such a big squad was the expectation that there would be a high drop out rate. When you sign so many players going into a season its inevitable that quite a few of them will not work out. Whilst we might expect Ferres and Lowes to have a detailed knowledge of players capable of performing at the top of the Championship, in reality they will have been fairly unfamiliar with the talent pool that we were recruiting from.

Re: Recruitment 2016 Rumours & Signings.. : Mon Jul 13, 2015 4:38 pm  

I wonder if our scout at Mackay Cutters will be retained.

Re: Recruitment 2016 Rumours & Signings.. : Mon Jul 13, 2015 4:51 pm  

Well there's an announcement due Thursday night at the Fans Forum.