Oh dear.

It had to happen someday, we were all wishing it wouldn't be us - but it was.

Still, while you can't take any positives out of losing at home, especially to a winless bottom club, the fact is that Celtic deserved their win, and not because the Bulls played all that badly. I didn't think we did. But we seem to be able to contrive narrow defeats at will this season and the writing was on the wall all game that we might do the same here.

I have tried thinking what I'd make of the game if it wasn't bottom winless club against us, and just judge the game on its merits. In that light I think Celtic put up a spirited performance, kept at t for 80 minutes (as did we0 and shaded a close contest.

In terms of marks out of 10 I would give us
8/10 for effort
6/10 for quality

It wasn't that bad a peformance, and (again) it was a game we could - and probably should - have won. It's just that when you lose yet again at home, and now to the bottom club, this is a recipe for outrage amongst the long-suffering home faithful, and I understand that. Talk of Fortress Odsal - seems much closer to Sandcastle Odsal to me.

Looking at the game in isolation, as I say we weren't that bad, and it was a decent enough effort from Celtic, but taking the rest of the season especially at home so far into consideration, it is just not good enough as a whole. If we'd got beat down in Wales, it would be a bit different. But I don't frankly know what you can say about our form, especially our home form. Giving due credit to Celtic, nevertheless if we'd applied ourselves like against Leeds, or like at Saints, we'd certainly not have lost. Bottom line is - we didn't. They didn't allow us to, but we still should have produced the answers.

Trying to work it out is a thankless task and I'm glad as hell I'm not McNamara, but if I had to point to one thing which has been a constant factor in our failures this year, it is the cheapness with which we sometimes concede points. Some days the defence is tigerish and looks sorted, but too many times it ends up leaking too many avoidable points. to be more specific, we seem to have entre halves where things take a turn for the worse, and here we went again. We conceded 22 points in teh second half, in a game where we should have been coming out fired up to g all out for a win. And once it starts to happen, we don't seem to ever be able to stop the points going in. Sure we can score some ourselves, but it seems to me this crazy inability to defend for 40 minutes at a time, is the malaise which is kicking the sh#t out of our season.

Given the length of this post I assume that you are NOT in speechless wonder then?

just wants to talk about the game without trollers like in the other topic who just want to post images and fill pages and pages of cr*p

It comes down to it and they are a fairly decent side. They've been unlucky against Leeds earlier in the first game and were leading against Saints for a time too. The half back play between Deacon and Jefferies doesn't work. It's no coincidence that our best for was when Deacon was injured and Sykes and Jefferies were at 6 and 7. I'm not astounded. I'm not angry. And I'm certainly not calling for Macca's head. But I do wish that the coaching staff would get to grips with the idea that the half back pairing isn't working and that Deacon is no where near good enough to make first choice scrum half anymore.

I know that you try and put positive spin on everything but to suggest that today was anything other than shambolic is ridiculous.

Yes, their record this season does indeed suggest that doesn't it?




They scored 0 (zero, nil, no) points v St Helens. How then, were they leading?

Not using it as an excuse, but the 2-week break possibly came at a bad time, after 2 tub-thumping wins. It's a little hard to comprehend the Deacon/Jeffries combo being at fault, seeing as for an hour at Murrayfield they tore Wakey to shreds.

Back to the drawing board. Again.

Conversely, if we all had the same negative attitude as you, half the posters would have thrown themselves off Beachy Head by now.

At the moment, Deacon seems to be up and down and today was a down day, he got a lot wrong, and much of his kicking was simply not good enough. I get really sick of him just lobbing the ball to be easily caught by an opponent, what's that about?

I'm by no means singling him out, and I didn't think Jeffries was up to much today either, but when it ends up a tight game, every yard of territory is precious and we seem to give up far too much, far too easily, when we are in "second half mode". Deacon's erratic kicking was a factor.

Can we please have the team back that beat Saints, the one that beat Wakey the week after and defended their line like their life depended on it?

Where were they this aft?

I really don't get it.

So you were happy with today's game were you and likewise your ecstatic how the seasons gone so far.

They weren't leading against us ... they were nilling us! We only managed one try against them and that was it! Celtic are not the soft option many people think they are. This win should have come a lot sooner based on how they started their season but they were hammered with injuries. At one match I remember the Sky guys saying they literally had only 17 fit men. All the rest of their squad - their big guys - were out. They've recently all come back (although they have lost Duggan for the rest of the season). So whoever got them once their big guys were match fit again was going to be in for a gruelling time because they are no pushovers. If they can stay injury-free then I don't think this will be their only win this season, not by a long chalk.

I'm dying to see them against Leeds in Wales. Oh, I will be cheering Celtic on big time! I just hope they stay injury free and then clean out the Whinos!

And its odd, becasue its really hard to say what was wrong. We were not diabolical, we didn't do any huge errors, we were just not good enough. Or should I say Celtic were better.

It's weird.

I talk about the game as I see it, and presume you do the same. I don't "try" to put any sort of "spin" on anything.

Yes, it was shambolic but the refereeing was worse.

i think if deacs sat out we would have a chance, all teams know what he will do now, when he kicks it goes straight to their fullback.

get rid and start playing like we were a few weeks ago, kicking from all over the field and by different players.

The ref was poor but for both sides.

First of all, congratulations Celtic. They were tough in defence and followed a simple but extremely effective gameplan for pretty much 80 mins.

As for the Bulls..

Well I think today we saw what happens when a team isn't prepared to do the hard work and the small simple things right. We looked lethargic and lacking in any spark in attack. Our forwards continually struggled to make in roads into a tough Celtic pack who refused to roll over.

I was worried before the match then wouldn't show enough respect to Celtic and revert back to earlier form. However I did still feel we would have enough to see them off even if we would make hard work of it.

I think McNamara has to make a decision on Langley who looks badly out of sorts. As BD II pointed out at the match perhaps his shoulder isn't right and surgery has been suspended until season end?

TBH, you talk b0ll0cks.

Yes I agree, but we got the $hittier end of the stick.

Today was awful.

Maybe with a different referee we would have won - as a minimum, this one did us no favours. Doubt we would have deserved it if we had though. We were just poor again - its back to a few weeks ago. Looked like a load of strangers not up for it (with the odd exception) again. Once again not helped by injury early doors, but we seemed to be lethargic yet again - they were miles quicker than us in every department. And looked like they wanted it far more. And we were back to anonymous half backs again. What the hell happened to the team that beat Saints and Wakey?

Referee was shocking. And so were we.

Trouble is the up days seem to be getting pretty rare. Surely we need to recruit a half back next year?

he was cr*p as a linesman never mind a ref.

Absolutely. It's hard to believe it was the same players.

It is weird, a good choice of word. Your assessment is correct. It just seems to me that in certin halves of certain games we contrive to ship in large numbers of points. It must be something, but what, and why once we start can't we stop? When we are going like in the second half, the opposition -whoever it is -just seem to be able to score as soon as they get the ball in our half. Yet at other times we CAn defend like a stone wall. Weird, and frustrating.