Actually he only just turned 20.

Addy's little flick pass in the build up to Ainys try was sublime.

As for the rest of the game, he played like everyone else. It was a scrappy game and everyone made mistakes!

You know, I feel as if I have fallen into some parallel universe here!

We made a few errors but got a decent win. Not much to worry about.

The NT is the new PT and vice versa.

Without your 1st choice halfbacks any win is a good result.

The amount of needless errors are a concern though and against slightly better opposition and without the great scrambling defence we may not have got the result. If we reduce the errors by half we would undoubtedly be looking a lot fresher in the final quarter.

Despite both wingers looking the part last night, I thought Ah Van looked a little dodgy in defence at centre. He was brushed off a number of times and failed to complete the tackle. I had the same concerns versus Halifax in pre season but put it down to some rustiness. I'm not sure how much NRL experience he had at centre but it's an area he needs to improve against the better sides in SL. Looked strong once again with ball in hand though and he strikes the ball superbly. Some of his restarts were putting the Crusaders under some pressure, too often teams are happy to just return the ball to the opposition with a hoof down field.

I agree Eddie.

The bad stuff should be pretty easy to fix up.

If we have easily highlighted it, you can bet the coaching staff are all over it.

And I repeat, we are still without our first choice half back pairing - we've had a different pairing every game so far!
Also we still need to gel a little.

We're sure to get better as the season progresses, so the more wins we pick up early on is a bonus IMO!

Did you see your mob on TV last night…..the camera was on you for ages!

Not seen the replay yet but I did receive a text off one member on here asking to get my bald head off his tv screen!! Which I thought was a little rude considering I had a hat on! But Sky do tend to pick out a good looking speccy to focus on...

We got the win. An away win at that.

Without our two starting halfbacks or Langley.

Despite the "momentum of the game" bollox seemingly again being against the side with a seemingly unassailable lead from half time - the conspiracy theorists will say Sky/RFL team orders...whatever.

Despite a late try against us that was a joke, and that had roles been reversed I feel sure would have been disallowed (every other benefit of doubt for Bulls has been).

With a three-man bench from early doors,

With a squad that everyone knows still has a way to go to fully gel.

And, apart from that last few minutes (again

) with some generally very effective defence on show.


Various people, from the coaching staff down, did counsel patience before the start of the season. I'm still happy to be patient. We saw some good stuff yesterday - the work for the Ainscough try was sublime, and genuine pace out wide is something we have not had for ages - and a load of silly stuff that ought to be fixable before not too long. I said some time back I expected a slow start, but with our momentum picking up strongly as the season progresses. I remain of that view.

And as for Pinky and Perky and the Wigan Wakner in the Sky box...they always talked bollox anyway and Clarke has just become a verbal excrement machine. So I ignore what they say - or, more usually, watch matches with the sound down low. Wells and Carney for me.

One of the worst games I have ever witnessed in SL. But one you would probably have lost last year without Orford. Definitely a better team when Diskin is out there.

If winning "Ugly" is what it takes during the first half of the season then so be it, the team need to be in a reasonable table position by then to step up and get on a roll towards the playoffs and onwards!

Its all about result, not performance.
Dont let Barrie McD, Phil Clarke or any other try to convine you otherwise.

Re injuries, the Duffster tweeted earlier "Chev's injury not as bad as first thought. Heath sprained his ankle. Will know more tomorrow. Ah Van OK."

Fingers crossed.

Cheers for the update, I feared the worst when I saw Heath go down.

Probably a week or two off for Heath, be nice to have him back in the side to face the Giants though.

Not entirely. Welcome to the PT eddie, but there are still a few of us standing. As I already said, our constant error-making is what sets us back time and again, how we cut it out, I don't know, but not finding touch, being caught on the last, and kicking off dead is stuff that at SL level just shouldn't be happening. Having said that, it was nowhere near as bad a game as some are trying to make out, its worst feature was indeed the catalogue of mistakes by both teams, but we saw some good to great attacking at times, the Bulls scrambling/goal line defence was good to watch and several levels improved, plus we scored what may be the try of the fookin season, and got a win away which was a pretty emphatic win despite the ludicrous scoreline and despite ourselves. All without either of our first choice halfbacks.

Have to agree with the posters who have said that Royston should be left at fullback. Watching the game last night, it didnt look like he had a specific position and was only there to back up players. He can do this from Fullback and could then chime into the line when needed also. Just unfortunate that Crusaders didnt have enough in the tank to beat you lot.

Mt favourite part of the entire Sky broadcast yesterday was when they turned to the resident 'expert' Stevo for his post-match analysis.
And what was the first point he made? "Bradford need to find someone to partner Kearney."



What an absolute cretin Stevo is. If Kyle Briggs was watching that he would have been tearing his hair out, even when Eddie and Phil Clarke commented on our absentees, they all completely ignored him.

Sums it up pretty well, FA.

Despite all the complaints about it being a 'poor' match it was actually quite entertaining, with ten tries (some of them actually very good) and some superb defending at times. I agree it was hard to watch for us with an interest in the result, groaning with every dropped pass, missed tackle or other (only too regular) error but there was a lot of good stuff interspersed with the dross.

There were far too many individual errors though, but hopefully the win will settle a few nerves and the players can now just get on with the rest of the season without the desperation of getting a win.

I tend to agree with what's been said elsewhere.

First and foremost it was a win and that will hopefully help calm the nerves and stop some of the crazy attempts at offloading the ball when there is no hope of anyone in support getting it.

I thought Kearney played better than some on here are giving him credit for and I though his swapping and changing with Royston helped shake things up and keep Crusaders on their toes. Addy wasn't great but. like Sykes last week, it was his first run out so I'd expect him to a bit rusty. Missing touch from a penalty is a cardinal sin but I've seen more experienced players do the same thing - it happens.

There were a lot of silly mistakes on both side - knocking on from a 20m tap, passing into a crowd of Crusader players etc... Like I said, I think some of those were down to nerves and an eagerness to keep the ball alive when in reality we'd have probably been home and dry if we'd just done the basics right. A case of walking before we can run and something that will improve as players get used to playing with each other.

I think fitness is a bit of an issue, even in the first half. Roysten looked knacked after one of our tries and was blowing a lot more than I would have expected even after having just come back from the other end of the pitch. Injuries aside hopefully that match fitness is something that will come in the next few weeks. I don't know what the focus was on the extended pre-season: skills or fitness. I seem to remember reading that they were hit hard on the fitness side of things before Christmas before focusing on skills. Saying that, I think we've looked below par for the past few years so maybe I'm expecting too much!

I think our defence needs to improve. I'm dreading seeing opponents run at us with a slightly broken defensive line as I'm not confident that the players who's job it is to make the tackle will be up to the job but I expect Potter is aware of any weakness we have and is working to rectify it.

The ref's seem to change the rules week in week out. In Cardiff they were blowing for penalties at any sign of laying on where as yesterday the didn't seem bothered if play was held up. They need to be consistant and decide one way or another how they're going to control the game.

You've got to remember that Royston has had to make the step up from the Championship, and there is large difference between the leagues. So maybe his fitness isn't quite up to scratch yet.

Did anybody notice Kearneys kick that led to Ainscoughs try? He kicked it on the outside of his foot and bent the ball.

That's some trick.

The wifes been bending mine for the last 26 years! Not in a good way

All pretty reasonable comments, though I'm not so sure about the fitness being an issue. In all three games so far, we've given away so much ball late in the game and had to do a lot of back to back sets in defence, that it's impossible for players not to look cream crackered. To me, we need to concentrate a bit more on keeping the ball, especially at the back end of games. At times when we've been well in front, we've still played like we were ten points behind with time running out. If we can stop giving the ball away with silly offloads or giving daft penalties away then we wouldn't have to chase the ball so much and we'd have more energy to do the tackling.