The brain farts seem to becoming a regular part of our gameplan . Makes me wonder if we’re just trying to hard but the errors and penalties are becoming a problem. There’s obviously some skillful and talented lads playing for us but our mentality seems to be way off . We’re miles off the playoff team of last year and at this rate won’t be making them .

We are not a bad team we scored good tries. The ref was awful for both sids so Much missed. We lost the game through giving too Many penalties and six again at the ruck. And our main downfall this season, soft tries on the line. The bulls kick through try was well done but allowing players to crash over from is appalling. Where has our goal line defence enthusiasm gone from last season? This is slowly turning out to be a bad year. Maizen is so fast. We need to give him more space to run he is as fast if not faster than Wombat. Those two could be deadly if they are not spending their time defending because of ill discipline and bad game choices.

This sums it up well. Add on the usual discipline problems, repeating mistakes and Mr Grant's obvious dislike of Fax and there you have it. The game as a whole was summed up for me when 15 minutes from the end Bradford took a Huddersfield player off and brought a Leeds player on. Totally dissolutioned.

Grix is the legacy of the old board , the new owners will make their choice in the fullness of time imo.

Grix - Time to go

So true. Maizen and Walmsley have pace to burn but little opportunity to exploit a gap sadly. Mainly interceptions.

Really!
The main problem we have is giving the opposition easy field positioning. Silly penalties and giving six again away. That’s not from coaching that’s the players on the field not thinking.
Nearly all our tries this season have been soft on the line. This ain’t Grix’s fault because last season we had excellent goal line defence. Woodburn-hall, Saltenstall Maizen and Walmsley are all having a great season. They run the ball well defend like they are props and are scoring great tries. our pack is light and needs some beef so that’s an are of concern. Keys joufre and Moore are not playing like they did last year these are our play makers, balls distributers and kickers and these are our weakest areas at the moment. On a coaching pointLast night’s kicking game didn’t provide any problems for Bradford and most it was predictable. Every kick off was in the same area of the field, 5th tackle up in the air. It was all very predictable. But our half’s are experienced enough to know when to change and vary the kicking game. It didn’t happen last night and hasn’t been all season.

Would've thought that a short grubber kick in behind Blackmore would've been the kick of choice - he turns like an oil tanker.

So in the last 5 games against the Bulls Grix has coached us to 4 wins and a 4 point defeat against a Bradford team whose 2 best players were Leeds first teamers - and should therefore be sacked??? Have never used bad language on this forum before- but utter B******S Against my better judgement watched it back today - could easily have gone either way, main difference as has been stated earlier is that Fax made more errors, especially in the first half. Halifax have a lot of pace in their team, that to a large extent the conditions negated, Bradford to be fair defended as though their lives depended on it. Personally I really can't wait to play them in the cup - after hopefully restoring some confidence against York which I think is the single biggest obstacle to playing the rugby we got used to last season .

Regards Grix and his tactics he is very much a stats man and a play the percentages coach rather than someone who is willing to mix thing up. The worry for me last night that we came in to the game without any shift in tactics to allow for the weather, wingers and fullbacks throwing 20 yard passes on returns might look cool but its very much not what is needed in those conditions and and cost us posession on at least one occasion. Just going back to the first half it was just so, so bad and the pass off our own line where Jouffrett failed to find a Halifax player in a crowd of them set the tone for the evening.

Its starting to become a bit of a frustrating season as we all know we are going to be a lot better once the grounds firm up but at the end of the day theres still a very good chance that nearly half the season is played in pretty poor conditions and we can't adjust to that. Like in a couple of weeks time Im sure we beat Bradford in the cup pretty comfortably like we did Barrow but its going to make it a bit of a scramble to get a good position in the league. Ive no doubt we will be the biggest threat to Fev when it comes to the end of the season but we aint doing nothing from 5th or 6th.

I don’t know what game people watched last night. We got bossed in the forwards, they made easy yards and we spent most of the game trying to work our way out of the half. We were only in the game because of a try from a kick and an interception. We didn’t create a single chance of our own in the second half and apparently that was our best half. In the last few minutes I heard someone say “Our best chance of scoring is when they have the ball”, sums it up. We were dominated by a Bradford team missing a lot of their first choice players.

To be fair Ive not seen anyone suggest the opposite of what you have said. Going on what you said there though the positive is that we can play that bad and still find ourselves within touching distance at the end of the game. When we went set for set with them in the second half we matched them for yardage and that is despite the extra effort we excerted in the first half from having to defend set after set due to unforced errors. Its not great but its not exactly the panic stations that some people are making out.

Fax would not have beaten many teams in the league last night given the first half performance and I would go so far to say the top few teams in the league would have handed us a far bigger beating than Bradford did.

I thought Bradford played the conditions far better then us in the first half. Like as been said we played like it was a dry day with the sun on our backs instead of adapting to the conditions. Kicking out on the full twice, throwing stupid passes near our own line ,when trying to clear our lines the acting half passing to nobody into our own in goal area, not dealing with kicks near our line players leaving it to someone else to deal with. I also thought the players Bradford had on dual reg really put in a good shift for them i wish when we used it the players would try that hard. We did improve after the break but you can not perform the way we did with such a lack of discipline for 40 minutes and expect to win. One positive was we got to see just how fast maizen is he can shift and we need to find a way to unleash him and Lachlan more often. I did tip us to finish second this season but i just can not see it we seem to be going backwards as a team we do have individuals who can score out of nothing but as a team we seem way off. For me other then Fev away in the cup we have been poor this year. A good half hear and there isn't good enough i still think we have a good chance to get in the playoffs but not the top 4 which i would see as a under achievement.

Too many unforced errors. The two misplaced passes on our own line would not happen in u12s rugby. Jouffret had his worst game for us, he definitely hates the cold weather. Keyes just seems off it at the moment.
When the halves don`t tick we really struggle. Not convinced Maizen is a centre though he has the knack of scoring.
The killer was the try before half time we had somehow managed to stay in touch until then. Patton had a stormer for Bulls on the back of good field position due to us repeatedly turning over ball. Match stats on completed sets for each time would be interesting.

I did not hear who got m.o.m , perhaps they couldn`t pick one?

Pickersgil should play this Sunday needs something to change and fast

Where are you going to play him though? JWH is consitsantly one of our best players. There is no dount Pickersgill is a decent player but in the sense of needing a player for that position he is a waste of money.

Agree, it would be madness to change JWH for no other reason than to change it. Maybe start Tom Inman and play him for the majority of the game and putting BM on the Bench. Even though Keys and Jouffter to some extent and not playing as well as last year we don’t have anyone to play those positions with their skill even if we did want to eat them. I think we need the forwards to up their game so these Guys can play their game with a bit more space and time.

Watching it back yesterday
Thought Woody had a quiet game
Walmsley went ok for his first game back
Maizen had is best game yet i had not been impressed with him this year until thhis game
Mcomb well i would still rather have had worthington or arundel playing not sure why we have not signed a big hungry
Salty played like normal but not his best game
Keyes not at his best a brain fart and his kicking game was not how we know it can be
Joufret went missing not sure he likes the rain and cold
Murray played well
Dorro seems to go unnoticed but man of match for me runs hard and gives is all
Maher well what is the point in signing him - useless waste of money i would of had springer in anyday
Inman again played well not his best game

Think the cup game will be different espescially if its dry

Watched it again,
Mcomb makes good yards after contact and I thought outplayed Arundel.
Salty at fault for a shocking pass on our line. Definitely one of his poorer games for us.
Maizen goes ok but needs putting into a gap as he does not seem to have much footwork. I do not think he played centre much in Oz so perhaps he will grow into the position.
Both halves a little lost, Keyes seems to have lost confidence and was once told by supporter of a team that Joufftet had played for he "wont turn up if its cold and wet!"
Maher: well everyone was calling for a big forward and he is big and slow.

Bring on York.

We all know what's missing in the forwards...but again for the Grix apologists-the ability to break tackles and have an offload game ideally both.Being tall doesn't constitute the type,especially one that looks better suited to basketball if he could handle the physicality..

Just watched it back and it's like watching a replay of any number of games. No punch up front, repeated unforced errors mixed in with Mr Grant's usual awful biased display and we lose again to a team no better than average. Add to this Leeds' Waters man of the match display which just rubbed salt into the wound. Bradford must have been thinking it was Christmas! icon_mad.gif

Everyone blames the coach when teams lose, maybe there is some rightful criticism, but he can do nothing about it when they cross the game line. He could pick a different 17, but who is better than who? I can only watch replays therefore do not see the whole, but reading others view should Inman start instead of Moore?, Maher gets called every week, is there not a better player on Fax’ books.
As far as the coaching goes, maybe there is something in the Scott Grix, and Liam Finn not being there and it is showing the shortfall of original plays and players not having the confidence to try. Does Simon hand rollockings if they deviate from his game plan, whereas Scott and Liam would encourage free play and outvote Simon.
Just the ramblings of a disappointed Fax fan some 7000 miles away.

Simon Grix as coach is not above criticism. It's true he doesn't drop balls, miss tackles, give needless penalties away but taking this particular game into account it was blatantly obvious that grubber kicks behind the defence would have mixed things up and put doubt into Bradford's defence. He could have instructed the kickers to mix it up. I don't think we tried it once.

This. But that is the thing that really has not got me too worried about our season just yet. Bradford fans are talking about this win like their team played a worldy and certainly one of their best performances of the season where as for me im struggling to remember a first 40 minutes as bad as that in a lot of years but despite that we still had a chance to win this game. Are Bradford going to get much better than that this season? Personally I think Fax are playing a long way below the levels that we are capable of.

I thought Fax were very slow to start and those early errors were costly. That ought to be fixable. The discipline can be more of a problem if players are too dumb to moderate it. We have a similar issue when we’ve lacked our experienced leaders like Thompson or Lawrence. It’s up to the captain to keep the side on the right side of the ref. Thought you had us on the ropes a few times but took the wrong option e.g. with Keyes not putting enough kicks along the ground or Jouffret not exploiting space on the outside. Again these should be fixable but it depends on how players react under pressure. You can issue as many instructions as you like but it’s whether they sink in.

As for the kick offs well surely that is fixable? Better to be cautious and not leather the ball if it’s windy conditions??