Re: New Signing to be announced tomorrow : Fri May 13, 2011 8:50 am  

Beaver...Beaver... wrote:

And they are all saying that he is a better stand off not S/H so maybe now Jeffries is here will we see Herbert in his "Best" position?

He must be the tallest SH since Terry Holmes. Who wasn't a RL SH either.

Re: New Signing to be announced tomorrow : Fri May 13, 2011 9:09 am  

Bulls4Champs2010 wrote:

I dont want any player to do badly, that includes Herbert. I just think he's a very poor SH and cant see for the life of me why we signed him or continue to play him. Briggs, I think he's shown some good stuff in pre season and the Leeds game and could still possibly turn out good and I'm not writing him off considering he's come from a part time set up into a full time one with little time pre season to adjust.

Agree re: Briggs, definitely. I think he deserves a prolonged run in the side at least, surely to prove his credentials rather than be dropped after one game? Especially now he has a better scrum-half alongside him. I've defended Herbert but I'll openly admit he's been slow off the mark, whether he'll change time will tell.

I think you're probaly exaggerating however when you say you couldn't work out why we signed him.

Re: New Signing to be announced tomorrow : Fri May 13, 2011 10:10 am  

Who are the Odd Couple? I thought it was Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau?

Would be great if they did start posting on here!

Re: New Signing to be announced tomorrow : Fri May 13, 2011 12:09 pm  

Regarding Briggs, I've been told has had to put on over a stone in weight and drastically change his tackling technique, Mick Potter believes this will improve him as a player, we can only trust in his coaching ability. Maybe the lad has had to change too many things too quickly.

Re: New Signing to be announced tomorrow : Fri May 13, 2011 1:22 pm  

You don't need to be a muscle bound 16 stone beast to play at stand off. Look at Kevin Brown, skinny guy who mixes it with the big boys and is a good creative player. I just think Briggs needs to work on his base set of skills because they are still at Championship level. He will have time but in our current predicament we cannot really wait 2-3 years for someone to reach their true potential or improve to super league level. I truely feel that he just isn't good enough and i question his desire but i hope i am proved wrong.

Re: New Signing to be announced tomorrow : Fri May 13, 2011 2:02 pm  

JBT1991 wrote:

You don't need to be a muscle bound 16 stone beast to play at stand off. Look at Kevin Brown, skinny guy who mixes it with the big boys and is a good creative player. I just think Briggs needs to work on his base set of skills because they are still at Championship level. He will have time but in our current predicament we cannot really wait 2-3 years for someone to reach their true potential or improve to super league level. I truely feel that he just isn't good enough and i question his desire but i hope i am proved wrong.

Brown is deceptive, due to having a pea on a stick for a head. He must be >13 stone & has no problem with the physicality. He even beat up TMFMISL.

[Bulliac]

Re: New Signing to be announced tomorrow : Fri May 13, 2011 3:05 pm  

Steam Pig wrote:

Regarding Briggs, I've been told has had to put on over a stone in weight and drastically change his tackling technique, Mick Potter believes this will improve him as a player, we can only trust in his coaching ability. Maybe the lad has had to change too many things too quickly.

That could be right.
I read somewhere this week that Shad Royston said he didn't come to the Bulls to be a 'squad' player, but was (pleasantly) surprised to get so many games so soon, so maybe Briggs is just the reverse of that? Unlike Shad he didn't get a full pre-season at the Bulls so that can't have helped, but I agree we can only trust the coach to get it right and do what is necessary. I'm sure he will.

Re: New Signing to be announced tomorrow : Fri May 13, 2011 7:30 pm  

Firstly, it is obvious many of the Bradford squad have been subject to a pre-season bulking programme, prime example being Platt. This additional weight must take some time to get used to, especially at match speed. Whether this is necessary for the likes of Briggs in his position is purely a coaches decision. I would argue it isn't when making comparison to other players throughout the superleague.

At the risk of going over old ground regarding the half backs I wanted to ad a different view and whilst I accept it wont be popular and I don't watch every game I thought I'd seek opinion from yourselves.

Heath L'Estrange is a decent player, shows passion, determination and more often than not is the cause of decent Bradford attacks. But does he make the wrong decisions and starve the half backs of ball?. I noticed several occasions during this cup game when Herbert and Briggs would call a play, set the attacking line and Heath would scoot in the opposite direction with nothing on. Now I know I leave myself open to the possibility that this could be some form of decoy but it just happened too many times.

On a more positive note, in that game I thought Briggs' defense had improved massively, considering, for Bradford, he has been playing on the opposite side of the field to what he ever did for Featherstone. I also think the kicking game of Herbert and Briggs looked more accurate than ever before.

Re: New Signing to be announced tomorrow : Fri May 13, 2011 10:08 pm  

Bulliac wrote:

That could be right.
I read somewhere this week that Shad Royston said he didn't come to the Bulls to be a 'squad' player, but was (pleasantly) surprised to get so many games so soon, so maybe Briggs is just the reverse of that? Unlike Shad he didn't get a full pre-season at the Bulls so that can't have helped, but I agree we can only trust the coach to get it right and do what is necessary. I'm sure he will.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Royston full time at Halifax?

As for Briggs people are entitled to their opinions of him but I personally am willing to reserve judgement of him for now. The reason I say this is because he is a 22 year old? lad that packed in his day job then packed his bags for our Lanzarote trip in 72 hours. Plus he's in a pivotal position. I honestly think he'll come good.

As a side I remember reading a RLW article about finances in the Championships and the chief exec of Halifax gave a very honest and frank assessment of the way things are financially. He even went as far as to say that on the back of wages handed out by other clubs they were probably as guilty as anyone else for matching said wages (remember how the gazumped Fev to sign Gleeson) of hiking up playing pay in the Championship thanks to the cash they were getting from HBOS. the article suggested that there were some players in that division - and it didn't name the club(s) they played at or provide any sort of substantial evidence if it's actually true - claiming to be paid 30K to train part time. That's a lot of money on top of your day job for training two nights a week and playing on a Sunday. Maybe this suggests why Royston didn't moved to Superleague earlier??

In fact in the Sun article this week about Shuan Leaf it stated that Doncaster were paying decent appearance bonuses to him. Certainly comparative to the sort of money someone like Crossley or Burgess will be on at Bradford and they are full time. Say Briggs got 400 quid a match at Featherstone and he was also working as a plasterer he's probably taken a pay cut in real terms to come to Bradford because he wants to forge a career as a Rugby League player at the highest level.

It's what Brough did when he moved from York to Hull and he was older. The Challenge cup final 2005 aside can you remember him doing much at Hull? Look at him now.

Re: New Signing to be announced tomorrow : Sat May 14, 2011 7:46 am  

Maccbull_BigBullyBooaza wrote:

Please correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Royston full time at Halifax?

As for Briggs people are entitled to their opinions of him but I personally am willing to reserve judgement of him for now. The reason I say this is because he is a 22 year old? lad that packed in his day job then packed his bags for our Lanzarote trip in 72 hours. Plus he's in a pivotal position. I honestly think he'll come good.

As a side I remember reading a RLW article about finances in the Championships and the chief exec of Halifax gave a very honest and frank assessment of the way things are financially. He even went as far as to say that on the back of wages handed out by other clubs they were probably as guilty as anyone else for matching said wages (remember how the gazumped Fev to sign Gleeson) of hiking up playing pay in the Championship thanks to the cash they were getting from HBOS. the article suggested that there were some players in that division - and it didn't name the club(s) they played at or provide any sort of substantial evidence if it's actually true - claiming to be paid 30K to train part time. That's a lot of money on top of your day job for training two nights a week and playing on a Sunday. Maybe this suggests why Royston didn't moved to Superleague earlier??

In fact in the Sun article this week about Shuan Leaf it stated that Doncaster were paying decent appearance bonuses to him. Certainly comparative to the sort of money someone like Crossley or Burgess will be on at Bradford and they are full time. Say Briggs got 400 quid a match at Featherstone and he was also working as a plasterer he's probably taken a pay cut in real terms to come to Bradford because he wants to forge a career as a Rugby League player at the highest level.

It's what Brough did when he moved from York to Hull and he was older. The Challenge cup final 2005 aside can you remember him doing much at Hull? Look at him now.

Fair points. But do you think, say, Burgess is on £25k & no bonuses?