Leeds and Bradford have joined forces in a partnership to raise the profile of rugby league and netball throughout Yorkshire.

Also will be playing a pre season game on Sunday 23rd January, kick off 3pm.

Muizz Mustapha, Corey Johnson and Jarood O’Connor join them on loan for the season.

Is there any recall option on these players? That’s a brave move if not.

Yes.

Can recall after 14 days

Makes sense then - these lads are unlikely to get game time at the beginning of the season.

Some more players due out at Fev?

Dual registration so i would expect Gannon, Broadbent, Edwards, Tindall regulars

Wish we would partner with Batley or Dewsbury rather than Bradford if im honest.

Good to see.

Previous history with Bradford aside, i'd like to see them back in SL. One of the few Championship clubs with potential to grow.

Maybe mate. I'm trying to think of how many players who played in the great Bulls sides were even from Bradford though. A fair few (English players) were from Leeds or Halifax I think? Paul Newlove was from Fev, Fielden from Halifax, Peacock and Lowes from Leeds... most of the other champion players were overseas imports.

The club overspent to get success, got in a world of trouble and failed to really connect with local youth development for me. Not saying that would be the same again of course.

Their fan base wasn't amazing unless they were spanking everyone either IMO.

Definitely has potential based on population and history, but a club doesn't add value if it's not developing it's own local juniors IMO as a core competence.

Bateman and Whitehead both Bradford born. Three Burgess brothers from Dewsbury but all came through Bulls system.

Not sure what you are talking about here. IIRC they were bringing through some top young players just as the club was on the verge of relegation - the Burgii, Whitehead, Bateman etc. Where do you think James Bentley came from? (And Donaldson for that matter, even if he's not star talent). That's already better than the likes of Warrington have been striving to achieve in the history of SL. It's all history now, but imagine if Bradford had retained some financial strength and had managed to hang on to some of those players a little longer instead of becoming a feeder club for Canberra and Souths...

A strong Bradford side was great for SL and our rivalry was arguably a factor in pushing Leeds to go one step further in 2004.

I could never understand why they stuck with McNamara so long when the money was still there but he was failing to deliver results and sticking with over-rated players like Platt, Sheriffe, Sykes, Halley, Tupou etc. They also had some real quality in Solomona, Morrison, Menzies, Orford (on paper!), but despite all that they always seemed to find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory - e.g. Tansey-gate, and the massive capitulation to Wigan in a play-off game where they were leading 30-0 (or so). McNamara continued his career elsewhere and has obviously improved as a coach but his early coaching education came at a huge cost to the Bulls. Potter managed to turn it around in his second season but by that time the money issues had really started to come home to roost...

Even if I add Leon Pryce to the list of real quality players Bradford produced, that's still only three that actually came from Bradford itself. The point there is that out of a population of around 300,000, over a decade or whatever, that's a shocker.

All clubs fish from similar ponds otherwise - what extra value does another club fishing in that same pond really bring? If a player is good enough, someone will pick them up and they'll find their level in the end. Bradford are picking up and taking a chance on some players in the Champ just like every other Champ club is.

York by contrast accesses a different catchment area, and could develop new players who otherwise would not find a pathway into the game. Toulouse - we'll see how they go - is another case. Bradford losing top flight status was catastrophic because they are no longer a big maggot in the player fishing pool, so all the better players they once could attract will just be signed by Wire, Hudds, Leeds et al instead. It's extremely hard to come back from that.

It is a shame we don't have those Leeds/Bradford derbies any more, I think we all miss the intensity of those, but that's history now.

Where to start Jim!

Bradford's never been a great producer of RL talent. The reasons for that are complex but you can't ignore the fact that the city has a far lower level of grassroots participation in RL than places like Leeds, Hull and Wakefield. So clubs simply do not fish from similar ponds. Bradford has never had a lot of amateur clubs and this has dropped even further in the last 20 years. So if you're looking for Bradfordians that have come through the ranks then I'd say a lot more have come through in recent years. Whitehead, Bateman the Pryces and Ethan Ryan being the best examples. They've come from the only decent amateur clubs in the city. Before them you're looking at Brian Noble and Keith Mumby!

Players so not simply "get picked up" by other clubs. A lot fall through the net. Like young Bentley who wasn't wanted by anyone - he was one of the only players left after we went into liquidation after the squad was picked over by others - he thrived and was picked up later by Saints after we brought him on.

A lot has to be said for having a decent system in place. Leeds had/have one. We used to and that meant young players reached their potential. The Bradford system brought through dozens of SL and international players. That they brought a lot through despite being skint should be applauded. You can't dismiss that and say it didn't matter because someone else would've done the same. I see plenty of other clubs with academies who haven't despite having more money to spend.

As for the fanbase not being amazing that's a laugh. Every club would see its fanbase drop if it had gone through what we've been through. That includes Leeds who I remember playing in front of crowds of 4 and 5k in the mid 80s and you were still in the top division.

I agree with Exeter Rhino that the board stuck with McNamara far too long. He brought through the youngsters like Whitehead and Donaldson but it was too late. He also made some absolutely awful recruitment (Sheriffe, Worrincy etc). Basically we served a purpose for him to learn how to coach. When Potter came in it took a season to turn us around and when it did it was too late which was unfortunate because I think if he'd been appointed a year earlier we'd have avoided the drop.

Anyway back to now - it's good to see we're still disliked by some as I'd rather that than be seen as an irrelevance. Those derbies in the late 90s and early 00s are one of the things the game misses. We're unlikely to be back anytime soon while we have big Nigel in charge but one can dream. If you look at our history in the context of the last 100 years we do seem to go from boom to bust with only three periods of proper success and a lot of bust in between. By my reckoning we'll be back in around 2045

That's a good post mate thanks.

I'm sure the reasons for not producing RL talent are complex, but that low level grassroots participation is significant IMO. It's not like the club hasn't had time or runs on the board of success over the years.

With the ponds, you are kind of agreeing with the point I made - Bradford don't seem to have (for various reasons) established much of a native Bradfordian pond, and so they've been picking up players in exactly the same other locations as other clubs squabble over. My point is then: if they were promoted back to SL, how does that improve the player development pool of the whole comp? That's assuming new player identification and development is a priority, which I strongly believe it is.

Re. Bentley, are you sure a Dewsbury, York, Featherstone wouldn't have taken him if Bradford hadn't? Plus, if Bradford were a SL side at the time they might not have initially taken him either, it probably needed to be a Champ club given where he was in his career at the time.

Not saying Bradford haven't done a good job once they got him, I'm sure they did.

Most players leaving Bradford seem to have good things to say about it as a club, and we wouldn't be sending three of our lads there if we thought it wouldn't be a good environment.

Fanbase: yes they attracted lots when they were tonking everyone by 30 points each game. Their crowds didn't hold up great when success went though and whereas I'm sure they're one of the better supported Champ clubs, would all those old fans return if Bulls were in SL again? And do they have better prospects of support now than York, Halifax etc.? Honestly I think the club did a great job in the Summer era as a marketing exercise, but too many of those fans were only there for the success and it showed when the bad times came again.

Maybe they are a sleeping giant in the Champ but the club has been run unsustainably for a long time now, and you have to compare what Bulls would bring against other aspiring clubs. Would Bradford be in my top 14 clubs if I was giving out licenses? Maybe, but certainly not a shoe-in for me.

Two things really. One – Odsal and surrounding area (the main centre for RL in the city) shares its hinterland with a lot of Kirklees and Calderdale. Look at Odsal on a map and a mile down the road to the south you’re in Kirklees. A few miles further and you’re in Halifax. That means a lot of the Bradford “heartland” isn’t actually in Bradford. But just because its not the Bradford council area doesn’t mean the club shouldn’t be able to call kids in those areas “their own” most of our support comes from that part of the world. Elsewhere in the city is more football centric and in the north west you’d have a job persuading anyone in the Keighley area they have anything to do with Bradford. As for the east toward Thornbury and Bradford Moor and it’s not RL or football. In the centre around Manningham it used to be football but isn’t anything now. I guess what I’m saying is that you can skew things when plotting RL development on a map of local authority areas. RL allegiance doesn’t fit those boundaries. I grew up in Pudsey and have been a Bradford fan since 1980! I do know though that player ID is thing we’ve worked on hugely and that’s why we’ve seen the likes of the Pryces, Bateman, Whitehead and Trueman come through since the Bulls came along.

Second point does it matter who improves the player development pool? What really matters is that it is done well and whoever does it well does the whole game a service. We’ve done it well at Bradford and made a better fist of it than most, despite the lack of money or the RL hinterland.



I didn’t make my point clear. Nobody took Bentley. He was a free agent at the end of 2016 just like the whole squad that was picked over by other clubs. Nobody was interested in signing him, not Dewsbury, not York or Fev but Bradford did once we started again and as you say we did a good job with him afterwards.

I hope that’s right. It hasn’t been on occasion for one reason or another but most Bradford fans with a brain are really grateful for the loan players we’ve had. Leeds in particular have been really good.



As I already said all clubs would see the fan numbers drop if they went through what we did. Don’t kid yourself you wouldn’t see Leeds attendances fall to 4 or 5k or less if you went through the same thing. As I said I remember Leeds getting crowds like that when they weren’t successful. All clubs would be affected in the same way. Nobody is immune. Nevertheless we do get better gates than anyone else in the Championship despite 3 administrations, 1 liquidation, 2 relegations and losing a heap of home grown players to our rivals.

As for giving out licenses we don’t deserve one yet. I don’t recall saying we do. I hope we do get back into the elite at some point but there’s a lot of work to do.

Again fair post. We have been terrible (beaten by Bulls being the epic low) for years, but Leeds has a higher core fan base than any other club IMO. It's not that fans of one club are any different from another as such: I do think the big swell in gates during Bullmania included a lot of glory fans though. The club bought success, allied with some very good marketing - but couldn't sustain it in the end. I can't see Bradford getting back to a dominant SL side any time soon so it's hard yards, as you say.

So Bradford are still getting Champ-best gates? That's good. It is a low bar these days but it's a positive.

Most Leeds fans would love to see a strong and sustainable Bradford back in the top flight, with some exceptions (!).

I miss them. Ali needed a Frazier, Borg needed a McEnroe and both Leeds and Bradford needed each other and the 20k gate receipts that went with it. It just wasn't always apparent at the time.

Great to speak to another Pudsey Lad.Interesting place Pudsey because I remember as a kid my dad telling me you could split his work place down the middle.Literally half loved rhinos and half loved the bulls.

I agree ArthurClues
Leeds v Bradford was a great rivalry which certainly packed out both Headingley and Odsal, So much so that it became a cash cow and both clubs must have earned a fortune on the back of it during the golden years.
I personally miss the rivalry that we had with the Bulls as derbies against Castleford and Wakefield simply don't compare IMO

Some very good reasoned debate too on this subject by Bullseye and Jim too and also without any agendas or points scoring between them either which is a refreshing change to some topics on here

I'm not sure if Adeybull is still posting on the Bulls forum?
But he was also worth debating with back in the day of our rivalries

Both Leeds and Bradford have endured financial difficulties which nearly closed them both down.

Leeds offered financial assistance to Bradford by allowing then to keep ticket money and loan them players whilst Bradford did everything they could to take players away from Leeds in a way to finish Leeds off in the mid 90s.

The Bradford rivalry was great for both clubs, great for the game but to me Bradford was never our rivals. Cas was always the big derby to me, the team i always wanted to beat more than any and that still remains.

Just wish we would help out well run clubs who deserve help like Batley.

Perhaps it is because I grew up in Bradford during the start of Bullmania, but for me Cas have never been serious rivals. Bradford may be out of SL but I doubt Cas will overhaul their SL trophy tally in the next 30 or even 50 years. Those Bulls-Rhinos games had real intensity and 'spice' (as Stevo would have put it) that I don't think I've seen in a Cas game (even the Sinfield headbutt game).

Since Bradford's demise our real rivals have been Wigan and Saints - even if we did suffer a bit of a dip in recent years.

Yeah same here. The Bulls era was great but we should never lose sight of the club's fundamentals - for Leeds it is and needs to be all about the Hun and Cas when it comes to our top local derbies.

I’m probably different but it’s Wigan for me.

Cas is a big derby. Maybe not the intensity of Bradford but nicely that’s a result of the massive side the Bulls put together. My word they took it to you with Anderson, Fielden, Peacock and Vagana. Big part of the spice was Barrie Mac.

Wigan is a big game but certainly not a derby match.