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.

Good point, though I think you do Dave Craven an injustice - even if he was an evil Rhino rather than just a regular one, would he really jeopardise his career by spinning against the Bulls out of spite? I think it's more likely that he is just wanting to make a story out of the quote rather than acting with any malice.

<cough> Steve Menzies<cough>.

Hey. . . here's an idea.

Why don't we poll people on these boards to see if they think Macca ought to be kicked out?

. . . oh hang on

If that's is the case then we must still be paying stupid money to certain players or Mr Hood is being a bit economical with the truth regarding spending to the salary cap limit. Also the rumours of Moi Moi have never had any substance and have been used to try and appease the fans.

do players come knocking on clubs doors, or do ambitious clubs with good contacts make deals happen?

for me thorman going to hulls spoke volumes about us. I'm a big fan of thorman, and I think he would have made a good addition to the bulls. do we even consider a move? why don't we make things like this happen?
The beaver would be good for us but he's not the answer to our woes!

Thorman is average at best. No improvement on our current half backs.

Ooh dear.

This might suggest he's going to put a little bit of faith in Jason Crookes perhaps as a centre..

..or play Menzies there

come on, our fullback & half backs are below average!..must have been worth a look? (ofcourse we may have!)
pacey, good kicker...not great in the tackle bit imo, still would have gone well.

Deacon has played for GB. Whilst there are better half backs in SL he isn't a below average SL scrum half. Jeffries is probably in a similar category to Thorman, perhaps down to personal choice. But I don't see Thorman as an improvement.

Probably so. I would say we're more likely to find a prop rather than a centre in the current market. But you never know.

Let's hope Crookes has a big pre season to prepare for some added pressure on his young shoulders.