Lets face it at the moment, with two new teams entering the competition, the market in players is a 'sellers' market, especially for 'english' players. All that the article says to me is that the Bulls will not be paying the sort of stupid money that some players are asking. Also, that Macca will be using the WC to gauge the worth of some of the 'talent' on display safe in the knowledge that he has cap space and a quota space.

How many people remember the Bulls early days in 95/96? Didn't exactly set the world talking about the 'star' names brought in then!

'Rome wasn't built in a day'

Can't help but feel we are the Tottenham of SL. "Never mind winning anything, look at the balance sheet".

How a good quality centre was not a priority for next season i will never know.

Well maybe it still is on the cards. Maybe the club are waiting to see if theres any eye catching players at the world cup?

It may have been.
Availability and salary demands will always have a huge effect on recruitment though

I've said it all along and it's now confirmed by the club.

Whether we'll ever be able to or not in the future is another question.

The squad looks way too thin at the position of centre with only Sykes and Nero with any regular first team experience in this position. If one gets injured the back up is as follows:

Menzies: Now more suited to centre field as his pace has gone.
Crookes: Completely untested at first team level.
Johnson: Almost as untested as Crookes.

I really hope we avoid injuries to Sykes or Nero as we'll really be struggling without them. I'd hate to have to rely on untested young players, it's far better to bring them into a side when they are in form and high in confidence. If the injuries strike we'll be bringing them in no matter what the situation. That's fraught with danger. Remember when Wigan were forced to blood young players when the injuries hit in years gone by? Their confidence got shot to pieces.

Looking at the rest of the threequarter line it's obvious that it's one of those areas McNamara's on about that he'd like to strengthen. I hope the club's serious about looking at talent in the WC. Hopefully it won't all be talk because a backline of Platt, Taduala, Sykes, Nero & Tupou isn't even top five quality.

With the present squad I reckon we'll scrape into the 6, but a finish lower in the table wouldn't be surprising if we got injuries at halfback or in the backs.

Priceless.

What macca should be doing if top stars aren't available is signing experienced players from teams such as Wakefield and Harlequins. Jees it's so obvious!!

cant really understand how the bulls have got rid of all these players one of which was the highest paid in super league on way over £300k per year, and they bring in the calibre of players they have and dont have funds for more signings...it just does not stack up you are being shafted by your club !

and then he'd be kopping flak for signing players from lower clubs. He cant win no matter what he does. He admits theres areads he'd like to strengthen but if the players arent available at sensible money then imo he's taken the correct option. We're in a very strong position should someone become available following the world cup ( which I'd imagine is having an effect on overseas recruitment this year with players not wanting to jeopardise the selection prospects by signing for a SL club prior to the tournament.

wash your mouth out with soap and water!
We've won a lot more than flipping spurs have!!!!!

Who was that then?

they havent said there isnt money available. On the contrary they've stated we have the cap space for further recruitment. The key bit is that theres no one available in position we need who'd be an improvement on what we have. Rather then sign a poorer player to act as backup to our weak position we're keeping the cap space free in case a better player becomes available later.

It remains to be seen if that really is the case. I guess we'll wait and see if anyone decent becomes available and we make a bid.

Isn't Talau available? Am I alone in thinking he's a better centre than anyone currently at the club?

true but he'd only be a short term solution. Although on a one year deal for sensible money I wouldnt say no.

Maybe he's already signed for someone else, to be revealed after the GF?

From what I heard on Sat at Odsal, there is no Cap space left, if they want to sign another player someone will have to leave.

In 2003 we won the f...ing lot. The next year, crowds went down. Clearly, winning isn't everything.

I see two routes back to title contention for Bradford:

1) An annus miribalis of consistent good form from the likes of Jeffries, Nero and Platt and good health for Deacon, Morrison, Burgess etc. Unlikely to occur to the extent it brings silverware but far from impossible.

2) A bit of the above, combined with another JP-SF-LP-PD standard batch of youngsters coming through and the OSV lifting morale and income - the earliest this will happen is in a couple of years time.

Clearly some posters do not consider these routes acceptable. The question is, what others are there that are available? Because all I have seen so far is "Step 1: Sack Mac. Step 2: Er..." If a legitimate third way doesn't exist, how can you advocate taking it? Would you rather see the club tumble to oblivion rather than risk a few years knocking around outside the top four? Or are you just having a moan because seven consecutive seasons of trophies have been followed by two without (for those keeping count, Wigan just clocked up their sixth fallow year).

Oh, there is another way - "Buy someone - anyone". If they are not available, and two well-regarded centres turned out not to be, we should panic and splurge. Bide our time and see what occurs. Good players have become available outside the traditional horse market period before now. After all, maybe this means Hape is coming back.

There is also another problem that would face Macca or a.n. other coach coming to Bradford. Each season the quota for non home federation trained players is reduced whilst most of the quality UK trained players have been signed up for the next 3 seasons . Are the doom mongers on here advocating a return to transfer fees to get some home talent to fill those gaps ?

they rejected quins offer they wernt just released too many touch line coaches on here do we know what talent is waiting in the ranks, tony smith is a very good coach his success at leeds and his early days as england coach show this, is he the only guy who thinks macca is up to the job or does he not know what hes on about either, maybe you should all start posting negative comments about the so called fans who chose to stay away now the trophey cabinet lay dormant for the last few seasons, instead of slating the team, bunch of muppets get off ya soap boxes. given the injuries we had this gone season we did ok

Brett stewart for Michael Platt

Paul Sykes will be the only first team centre next season. Matt Cook, Chris Nero and Steve Menzies are all backrowers. How can you go into a season with 1 centre. I now firmly belive it is time for McNamara to move on, our backs are a joke for next season.

Personally I am glad that we are not changing too many players. IMO we need some stability after large personnel changes.

Our squad does have some weaknesses but surely we are better to keep some cap in hand rather than panic buying players because deals have fallen through.

Pretty disappointing to hear we have no other deals ready to announce.. especially for the backline.

I think however the club and McNamara are right not to panic buy and spend the cap just for the sake of it though. However as Bullseye commented.. the proof will be if a quality player becomes available in an area we're short. I expect Talau is already tied up for next year.. but not totally convinced he is what we need anyway.

One thing is for sure.. unless one or two such as Koppy and Crookes improve massively we're pretty weak in certain area's. I am glad the club have made this public though.. we're not 'expecting an imminent arrival' but we know we have money to spend if a quality player becomes availble.



Israel Folau to be sacked for misconduct before his Brisbane career begins!!

re-reading the t&a article it does appear that dave craven has put his own spin on it (he's well known to be a rhinos fan btw. Although the headline is macca "happy" with signings, notice the quotation marks around happy. Further down the article it gives the full quote from mcnamara which reads “We’re happy with what we’ve got now but if something does come up then we will try and make a move,”. It further goes on to state that we do have cap space available for a further signing but we're not rushing into a panic buy. Think a lot of people have just read the first paragraph and gone off deep end. If you read the actual quotes from mcnamara and ignore the spin then the article reads differently.