: Thu Jul 09, 2009 4:36 pm  

It's simple until McNamara and his staff go we are not going to see any sucess. Hood wont complain about him signing players who have a fairley cheap salary. He's the biggest joke of a coach i have seen in 15 years of watching Rugby League, does anyone know his win percentage as coach.

: Thu Jul 09, 2009 5:51 pm  

Pretty naive to think that it was Macca deliberately signing cheap players with Hood looking on approvingly.
Rather obvious it was Hood setting the budgets and Macca doing what he could within them.
There again... there is no evidence and has been no comment ever that Macca even had a choice in the signings.

: Thu Jul 09, 2009 6:08 pm  

PRIDE is very emotive but generally subjective to the person who has it.
So some posters are I think at cross purposes.
I have PRIDE in the very existance of my club and this will remain as it always has from far darker days when its existance was in doubt.
I have had had PRIDE in lots of players for what they did and the honest endeavour they gave to the club notwhithstanding some with lesser abilities.
I've had PRIDE in many Bulls team's ability to win matches through talent, team organisation and/or bloody hard work.
I've seen players that had a PRIDE in the jersey that far outweighed the reasonable expectations of their skills and endurance.

It is the latter two that has been missing for the last 2 seasons, so the question is : how to engender this?
Is it coaching, is it culture... or what else?

: Thu Jul 09, 2009 6:23 pm  

I think everything Mick has said is fair and justifiable. I agree that, if we lose on Sunday then our season is dead. We might aswell then give Donaldson, Whitehead and other youngsters some game time. I know i'll be standing by the Bulls until the end of season and next season. I can't say that I know i'll be happy with my lcub anymore though. I think the recruitment in this off-season will be vital to us. I think it wouldn't be too hard to work out whether the club has high ambitions or is willing to wait as long as it takes for the Academy to bear fruits. Overall, this season will have been a disappointment as a whole. Somehting needs to change, but I am not the one who is in the position to make that decision. I hope Hood has some ideas about what needs to be done.

: Thu Jul 09, 2009 6:24 pm  

cieranblonde wrote:

Sykes' tackling has cost us 2 games in 2 weeks. Every try Cas scored 2nd half came from a break down that wing, straight through Sykes, and the Leeds first half rampage all went down that wing too. The guy cannot tackle. Simple as. As a defensive centre he's shocking. If you struck off the amount of tries scored down that wing this season we'd have won far more games.
.

It's the logic of the management that I fail to understand. We had it last year when we gave Platt a 3 year ext and loaned out Halley. We now have Halley as one of the few triers in the team and Platt can't even get in the 17. And in your post you point out what a disaster Sykes is in defence. Hir reward is a one year contract. If you were a Rhinos spy and wanted to screw the team up you couldn't do a better job.

: Thu Jul 09, 2009 6:25 pm  

Hood as always said that he is willing and wants world class players at Odsal, as when we thought we had signed Greg Bird. McNamara is the the one man to blame for the trash that he signed, he has gone for a team of speed and it has not worked and never has done. Paul Cullen is spot on, he has noticed that the Bulls are getting the ball out wide too early in the tackle count and not making any meters due to the shambolic back line we have (not including Halley). Our first 3 drives on a set should be taken by any of Lynch, Burgess, Kopzcak, Scruton, Menzies, Worrincy, Langley ect then get the ball out wide and we might see a better team display.

: Thu Jul 09, 2009 11:29 pm  

Great post mate

: Fri Jul 10, 2009 12:26 am  

6Iestyn6 wrote:

..Paul Cullen is spot on, he has noticed that the Bulls are getting the ball out wide too early in the tackle count and not making any meters due to the shambolic back line we have ..

Except that's actually rubbish, though, as we don't have any particular problem scoring points (our average per game at over 22 is reasonably comparable to all but Leeds and Saints which for a club in our league position is weird) - and you can't score those points if you are not making any metres.

Our main downfall is and has been our at times shambolic 'defence', followed by coughing up the ball, followed by giving cheap penalties away.

: Fri Jul 10, 2009 5:07 am  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

Except that's actually rubbish, though, as we don't have any particular problem scoring points (our average per game at over 22 is reasonably comparable to all but Leeds and Saints which for a club in our league position is weird) - and you can't score those points if you are not making any metres.

Our main downfall is and has been our at times shambolic 'defence', followed by coughing up the ball, followed by giving cheap penalties away.

Are you saying Paul Cullen talks rubbish? Controversial....

: Fri Jul 10, 2009 1:31 pm  

debaser wrote:

Are you saying Paul Cullen talks rubbish? Controversial....

Actually, Cullen seems to talk an awful lot of sense to me. I know he has a way with a turn of phrase, shall we say, but there's nowt wrong with that. And he does provide Sky with some very stimulating analysis. He doesn't seem to have whatever it is it takes to be a top level coach for some reason (though he's nobbut a lad yet) but he certainly seems to know what he's talking about and has great knowledge of the game, and some interesting thoughts even if we don't all always agree with him.