Shocking defensive display by the Bulls and we deservedly lost in my opinion. I thought the challenge on Semi at the start of the 2nd half was in the air and the Cas player fooled the officials that he had any intention of catching the ball. I look forward to the replay of that particular call but we once again laid out the welcome mat for the opposition.
If you repeatedly knock on in your own half and throw suicidal passes out to be intercepted then the result will always be a defeat.
If we go into next season with Deacon as scrum half then we may as well not bother. The guy has been great for the club over the years but he is shot and simply isn't good enough anymore. He is a passenger who offers very little nowadays. His kicking is no longer one of the best in the league and I'm losing count the amount times players just run around him as if he isn't even there. Sykes was again like a turnstyle in defence and I would be quite disappointed if we cannot do better than him for next year. I'd take Evans back to be honest.
Newton was abysmal and is another who's legs look to have deserted him. It's seems his flat pass close to the line is about all he offers nowadays and he won't be badly missed if he decides to move on.
On the plus side I thought Halley was outstanding once again. He seems to be improving all the time and is a joy to watch right now. I also thought Worrincey showed up well and worked his socks off whilst on the pitch. I think we would be silly to let BJ go as well unless we have some top quality players lined up for next year. He has been pretty consistently our most dangerous playmaker this year and deserves a new deal.
Nobody said he wasn't a good player. But both Shenton and Burgess have far more potential -and imo- brighter futures in the game than Chase.
In the right hands Sam could be a world beeter but at the moment he far to big to play anything bar a prop but thats down to very bad coaching and i dont mean first team coach it the fitnes team who obsesed about getting bradford to a stupid size. on Mick Shenton he is a little bit over rated when he good he is very good but he can not do it every week yet.
I left the ground today seriously wondering if I can be bothered forking out for any more home games this year. The last two losses were disappointing but at least the team looked as if they were up for the game. This afternoon they seemed undercoached, undermotivated and shambolic.
On today's evidence I'd keep Halley, Scruton, maybe a couple of others, and let the rest fight for their places with some youngsters.
I was going to bring a Spanish mate to his first game today but in a way I'm glad he was ill and couldn't make it. Perhaps in two weeks' time I'll have forgotten the dejection (again) and will persuade him along to the Wigan match. Whatever the result, I sure hope they aim to give a better account of themselves.
And why not award MOM to the away team now and again? Perhaps Halley did deserve it today, but sometimes I feel the only deserving recipient would be one of the visitors.
Depressing. Same old capitulation costing us the game despite being on top for much of it. Same old shocking defence. Same old various players looking like they were not that interested (guess Newton is maybe understandable if the rumours are true?). Same old dodgy decisions of course, but we should not be in the position of having to point to them.
Big ask to scrape the playoffs now.
Maybe its getting near time to drop a few players and let some of the younger lads have some extended gametime? That's the first time I've said that, but the argument for it has gone past "strong" after today, and is tending perilously close to "irrefutable" I suggest?
Glad I'm not involved in Bulls' Marketing; that's looking an even bigger ask than making the playoffs. Talking to two Cas guys after the match - I said was it that you were very good and we were poor? They replied both teams were a bit poor really. Sums it up. Just, again, we were a bit poorer. Edit: and sounds like Macca in his pre-match comments completely agrees
Deserved Win Cas, for that 11 mins after the break where we waved the white flag and they were hot.
Superb effort by Halley. Would that some others showed the same effort and enthusiasm. Thank God we hung onto him.
A lot of the player sponsors were vexed today only two players came in to the Coral stand after the game.
Disappointed with that performance, but at least Burgess is playing well again and Halley looked awesome. Tbf there were at least 4 Cas tries that would have gone to the video ref had it been on sky and some may have not stood. Their interception try was a clear offside, but that wasn't the worst, Tadulala was blatantly taken out in the air and then Cas were given a try . We can't just play well in patches, we need to do it for 80 minutes. Another thing is, Deacon may be improving his attacking again but he missed some tackles my grandmother would have made. Scruton played well aswell, but neither Newton or Godwin -the latter having a decent excuse- added anything to our game and lpayed poorly.
Agreed with BB in opinion that Deacon simply needs dropping and offloading.
He was cleanly skinned 3 times today (and probably more). 2 led to tries and the other he laid on the floor in a heap.
Sykes seems unable to take a ball in when he's been put through a gap, again knocking on a few times today when doing so.
4 minutes for the academy lad today (can't remember his name). What is the point - even the crowd mocked those 4 minutes with a huge cheer when he came off the bench.
I've said it all season, do we not coach in defense? We allow the other side to offload way too easily and for me it's not good enough.
Oh, and Newtons pass that led to the intercept could be seen all the way back from 1950, it was that predictable.
. We can't just play well in patches, we need to do it for 80 minutes. Another thing is, Deacon may be improving his attacking again but he missed some tackles my grandmother would have made. Scruton played well aswell, but neither Newton or Godwin -the latter having a decent excuse- added anything to our game and lpayed poorly.
He took to drives up in the first 15 minutes.
