Playing a prop at centre that's a thought.

I bet he'd defend better

Yeah, so be it. But we will get a handsome payout in the end.

Couldn't be any more of a turnstile than the present incumbent.

I don't see this as too much of a downer, Sykes has shown some attacking flair this season and has a good rugby brain.

It is a shame that he has been so awful in defense, but the whole team have been pretty pants defensively this year so I can't help but feel Sykes has come under a bit much criticism. The ineffective sliding defense that Bradford try to work with just doesn't cut it.

A coach that can teach defense is very much required IMO, I remain hopeful that some decent coaching could improve Sykes' defense.

You get to a certain age and there isn't much any coach can do about basics.

However he might not be so exposed if we were better drilled defensively, and had some discernible systems, but we don't, and don't seem to have had for some time.

It has become such a problem now that McNamara has to do something to change things round, whether that be swapping some of the centres and wingers around or even bringing Menzies back from the second row. Look at Leeds, they switched Scott Donald to the right to accommodate Ryan Hall, and have him playing with a solid centre in Keith Senior to help protect the youngster and it has worked well, even if it did take Donald a while to adapt to the change.

Doing nothing shouldn't be an option, but often seems to be under the current regime.

I think they subscribe to the "If you ignore it long enough then it might go away" theory.

It reminds me a lot of what I used to be like on Football Manager.

Assemble what I think is a good team. Put them out, watch them lose. It's a one off, don't worry about. Watch them lose again. They just need time to get used to one another. Watch them struggle for half a season. Ah but they look good players on paper, so they'll come good eventually. Get relegated. Not understand why they didn't play better as they're obviously good players, maybe I should have changed something?


It's quite worrying that the current coaching seems a lot like my crap Football Manager days....

Hmmm it was the individual training regimes and training in general I could never be bothered with.. just seemed a bit too much effort.

I think he meant Crookes not Crossley.

he has probably only been given a one year extension because there are no available centres on the market that the club are interested in signing, but there maybe the year after. sykes maybe only being used as a stop gap for a year...thats what im hoping anyway.

You don't say we never knew.