How come the Courier do two pieces in last weeks paper on Bradford Bulls and their blatant efforts to get into the Halifax Junior set up, the articles on recruiting the two lads from Siddal and the King Cross Park invite to a mini tournament???

It annoys the hell out of me as firstly its blatant poaching of local talent (okay we are not a SL team but there are rules I believe) plus they should build better links with their own junior teams in Bradford Met not try 'nick' ours in Calderdale.
The Courier give us decent coverage but why promote a rival like this???
Don't recall so much on signings we make or am I wrong?

Kids and parents notice these things - cheers Courier.

Business is business. I agree with you, but that's how things work.

True TS not saying they are not news worthy articles in some ways as these kids are local but when the Courier are one of OUR sponsors and also know its people like us (and Town fans) that only buy or read the Courier for news on our clubs its like shooting yourself in the foot.

Plus as I put what does it say to a young kid who wants to play RL at the top level? Bradford 'care' about junior kids more than Halifax do???
When Fax gave loads of free tickets to all junior clubs for the Widnes game too, maybe the club should try get more publicity when they do these kind of things?

So let me get this straight. You want the Courier to present a version of reality based on what suits the Halifax club? And if Bradford left junior development in Calderdale to Halifax, Stuart Fielden would never have got his shot.

Ouch.

Don't talk b0110x. There will always be players that slip through. How can letting SF go be representative of junior development in Calderdale. Man Utd let David Platt go, Forest regarded SWP too small three years before he was sold for 20 odd million etc etc.

Junior development in Calderdale is very strong. You could pick a strong SL VIII who have come through Fax academy.

Anyway, Is SF still playing? I thought he retired just about when Willie Mason put him on his @r5e? Good job for him he's best mates with Nobby otherwise he'd have been lumping stone up and down ladders for the last few years. Cracking player in his day and would have loved to have had him at Fax, but big Willie finished his career a few years ago now.

Oh, I quite agree. So better for the game to have more than one club looking for players there then.

FWIW I do agree that local papers should back their town's clubs. But that includes Siddal, and this is a good news story for them, isn't it? Should they be denied publicity for having brought on two young lads to this level.

Most Halifax lads tend to gravitate back from Odsal
Fielden is an exception.

That's if they make it at all - look at the likes of Ross Greenwood and Jake McCarthy.

And lads like Chris Muxlow at other clubs.

Now if Bulls and Halifax were really smart, they would accept that their territories overlap to a large extent, so it would benefit both to work together to expand the number of kids playing (and watching RL), and to allow players to join the club they prefer (I don't think this will always be the SL club and in any case most of you lot seem to think that'll be you not us in three years).

Doable? Maybe not. Desirable? Definitely.

I wholeheartily agree. If the Bulls and Fax could work together and keep our youngsters knocking around our own back yard, instead of deserting across the boarders (to do missionary work) it would be beneficial for both teams.

As for us or you in SuperDuperLeague in the next three years... well..... There is enough time for the rules to have been changed for franchises by then (framing the future!!!!) and there is absolutely no way that Superleague would want to loose Bradford from their ranks. As for us... Well thats totally in the lap of the gods (RFL board).

Go on then.

Nah your lot just walk all over us - they are not interested in junior development they just poach the best from outside Bradford cos there is not enough talent in Bradford.
FACT.

Whats in it for us???
Let all the cream go to Odslum and wiat for cast offs or 'loanees' for a year where we get our appetites whetted then lose them back to Bradfut???


The point is af the rules of the game are supposed to be that clubs should work with their local 'Service Areas' and nurture talent to come through from their own that route i.e Bradford Service Area in your case.
You are not supposed to take more than 2 players I think it is from other service areas, but clubs find ways round this and take more.
You seem to miss the point that its hard enough for clubs outside SL to get local talent to sign for them, I am a realist and accept that we cannot offer a top youngster the same terms as a SL club and this will continue to happen BUT for lads that are just potential at such a young age why not let clubs like Halifax bring them on and if they are that good do like Huddersfield have done with the Haven lad and sign them then loan them back until they get some experience and a bit older???

Don't just come into Calderdale and sign up all the lads that you hear may be the next Ellery Hanley or Paul Sculthorpe just in case!!!

I disagree.

Oh, sorry, I now realise you're right.



The idea would be that by working together, Bulls and Fax would get more youngsters playing RL, and so the general quality would improve. And as mentioned earlier, 'cast offs' can be fairly useful, cf Fielden, Jason Robinson, Shearer in soccer.
A totally arbitary boundary that stop half a mile down the road from Odsal despite our supposrt traditionally coming from well beyond that.But isn't that sort of what's happening now, with James and Kopczak? Similar end result at least.

I'm not suggestng Bulls come into Calderdale. I'm suggesting that Bulls and Halifax should recognise that there isn't a cigarette paper's width between their catchment areas and that both would benefit from a concerted effort to push RL participation to young kids (especially with the two towns' respective soccer clubs on their ar5es). This isn't a zero sum situation. You seem to think kids will either end up Bulls or Halifax, when the most likely outcome right now will be that they will be neither.

For the hundreth time your club is only interested in itself and no matter what you or I think they don't care a jot.

Oh and by the way most Halifax folk hate the place called Bradford, we all think its a hole and usually go round it on the way to Leeds.
So go away back in your hole and annoy other SL clubs fans af.

Should have saved yourself some effort and just written 'FACT' again.

It's quite a Tory position you're advocating - no society, just a series of individual clubs all scrambling over each other to get to the top.

Meanwhile, Bulls have been [url=http://viewtopic.php?t=401328showing they care[/url. Wouldn't it be good if they and Fax (and Fax and Shudds, and Leeds and Bulls etc) could each get together and make sure that schools that are roughly halfway between two RL cubs were getting regualr visits?

Agree here with Bradford and same as Huddersfield. Both are not Rugby areas and simply do not have enough juniors playing the game in the area and often the youngsters are not good quality players. A couple maybe are OK but most youngsters from Huddersfield and Bradford are not good enough for a Pro Club and there is no strengthg in depth. When you look at Halifax you have Siddal, Greetland, Halifax Irish, Ovenden, Illingworth, KX Park, Elland that have good Youth Set Ups and have a good record of players going pro whether at SL or lower League like the Fairbanks, Fielden, Robinson, Haley, Brocklehurst, Hobson, Kavanagh, Greenwood (Lee), Marnes, Hoyle, Boults, Bowman Brothers etc. Halifax is a goldmine that is similar to Hull, Wigan, Wakey, Leeds areas at producing talent for the Pro game.

Bradford does do development work in the city but obviously not enough as there has not been much increase in the numbers playing the game. How many Bradfordians have visited Odslum in the past 10 years? I doubt more than 12,000 in a city of 250,000 (Not including Keighley, Ilkley etc) Why not?

You are a bl**dy SL club with a huge budget and we are in the Championship where you get hardly owt from the RFL, well just peanuts anyway.
What makes me really smile is that you have just had the best and most succesful period in your history, winning and runners up many times in the Challenge Cup, Grand Final and World Club Challenge with all those 'glory fans' that you got with it and yet you STILL come into Calderdale to poach players.
So I have to ask what have Bradford Bulls being doing all these succesful years in such a big city to promote junior talent?????

Not a lot just bring in players on big wages from down under to win yet more trophies.
Now your bubble has burst you come on here dictating that we should work in 'collaboration'???

To fans of a club that has nearly died several times with one of the factors being your clubs success and SL taking RL fans over the hill??

JOKER.

Same reason people in Wigan like RL and people in Bolton don't so much, I guess. You can try to put it down to the failure to match all the incredible community development work Halifax have done since 1895 if you like though.

Say what you like but you cannot deny that at least Halifax is STILL a RL hotbed, something you cannot say about Bradford despite your glory years since 1997.

No need for the rage. We're having a discussion about the best way to proceed with the development of RL in West Yorkshire. You advocate every club for themselves, I suggest some co-operation (which you term collaberation, as one might do with the Nazis

) but you react like I've called your wife fat and your kids thick and ugly.

But why is that? And doesn't that in turn beg some questions as to how the nadir of 2003-2005 was allowed to occur.

You are a complete *****r, first you call me a tory now a Nazi???

Sod off back to Bullsh*t land,.

No, I wondered allowed if you were deliberately likening the Bulls to the Nazis, or whether it was just a subconscious thing.

The point is af SL clubs only look after number one, do you go around with your eyes and ears closed all the time???
Or are you just plain stupid???