I think this is a particularly harsh take. If it was true about Fax , then the scoreline would have been bigger than it was.

Close to the line generally (IMO) Fax never troubled our defence too much especially in the first half. They had to rely on some good play on the break further out but it was hardly scoring at will.

Our failure to capitalise when they had one in the bin ultimately cost us IMO even that early in the game.

Hard to disagree with the end result for sure, however had we nicked it at the end it would have been a total injustice either.

I'm not mad, just a bit disappointed!

Give it a rest Northus. If you're blaming Lilley for the defeat. How about the captains appalling read in defence yet again. Ryan was anonymous today. FB is almost as crucial as your HB in attack. If you think that's this is the most abysmal side you've seen you can't have been watching us long. Are we dull, yes. But we've made a quarter final, beaten Leeds and are a couple of points of the play-offs in our first year back. We're A frustrating side right now though and need to be better.

Our defence, particuarly around the middle is the biggest worry right now. How many times have Fax scored that type of try against us! Crossley again the culprit. Things need freshening up.

Well done Fax.

I'd expect to see the following play at Barrow on Wednesday:

Roche
Pickersgill
Ricketts
Stephenson
Gibson
Bustin
Milton
Hodgson
O'Sullivan

yup agreed and Milnes is costly loss for us, an extra game we could have done without. The start of the game we had one half and basically, we have been relying on the only true half, a 19 year old. do we have academy/u16 that could fill the roll now? a pun of course but i hope Keyes pulls through. We had a huge squad with 4 halves at the start and cruel luck has us at zero? still dont see lilley as a half.


I'll stop saying 'half' now as my chinese beers need topping up lol

This is complete nonsense. Are you seriously suggesting that the publicity and media exposure gained from reaching the semi finals means nothing to a club, especially a Championship club. It's that sort of exposure that increase sponsorship and commercial interest. Nott to mention the obvious ticket sales and some extra merchandise sales.

He likes to moan!

Why should I give it a rest? Do you think Lilley played well?
I've been watching Bradford for decades and yes this team is up there.

For what it's worth I don't think Ryan should be playing fullback, but that's just another baffling decision by Kear. At least we've signed Brown so it looks like they're trying to rectify the situation.

Lilley s fine as an organising half back, he needs someone alongside him who can produce something on attack. Anyone know anyone?

You need stock in your shop for there to be merchandise sales



Nah you're right, but it's over now anyway.

Well,so much for the Cup. I’m glad we don’t have the distraction of a shellacking by Saints. Although it grates to lose at home to Fax, beating Leeds was great, and some much needed brass in the bank.

But the serious injury I feared from games we don’t need is a blow.

The problem is that while we have resilience in defence, and a good attitude, we are a frighteningly one-dimensional style of play with ball in hand, and it’s not difficult to counter. We can’t come up with any last tackle plays to put the pressure on (the perennial punt in the air is as predictable as Monday mornings), and we must never hunt in fast packs with the threat of offloads, instead it’s one man plunge after plunge.

Too easy to defend.

Our main players are all off the boil but then we insist on playing players like Ryan and Minchella out of position, so maybe that’s a factor.

I actually enjoyed the game in some res, a to and fro cup tie, which could have gone either way, but was also frustrated at our failings which are not new. I fear we have been rumbled.

As the saying goes 'at least we can concentrate on the league' (assuming we play a shadow squad against Barrow and lose on Wednesday)

Although you can correctly say that we could have won, or at least forced golden point, with better goal kicking, the truth is that two of our tries came directly from mistakes by them. They were still valid tries, but you can hardly say that we created them through good play. Only the Milnes try was actually 'made' by good play.

And there is the problem with our team right now, we simply don't look like creating tries. Somehow we've got to do more than wait for errors, get lucky on the end of a kick, or a scoot from dummy half. We must be the easiest team in the Championship to defend against!

kear has said that nobody who played today will feature Wednesday.

I think looking at the bigger picture we are all a bit guilty of expecting too much from this squad. We are still a work in progress. We've come up against a solid established Championship club and just fallen short of getting the result from missed conversions. Yes the performance was poor for large spells but i don't expect Halifax will be thrilled with their performance either but they got a result which is all that counts.
We need to strengthen some areas but it won't happen overnight without a lot of money being thrown at it. Still feel we lack a bit of a talisman who can really take the game by the scruff of the neck. I guess those players aren't readily available but you just knew Murrell would likely edge things into Fax favour.

The season really is dead we look like we are safe from relegation and no chance of promotion so why don't we change tack and start attempting to take risks, instead of this conservative style of play. If not, all the good work done with the cup run Will be forgotten and the crowds will tail off watching this style of rugby. I think JK has done a great job up to now, but I feel he has to change the style of play and can now experiment a little.

I honestly think we never really recovered from the Joe Keyes thing. He played all our friendly matches (or most of them) and was looking in good form. I'm sure he was going to be the focal point of our whole attacking structure. So to lose him for the whole season to date obviously rocked our preparations.
We then have the Pickersgill situation. Given a full time deal during the off season, for whatever reason things have turned sour. I don't agree with JK's decision to just drop the kid and never play him again but combined with McNally's departure it left us with a key position empty. Kear is trying to fit a square peg into a round hole by playing Ryan there imo - it's not working.
There is then also the situation with Chisholm. Not exactly sure what went on but he's gone now. Was this Kear's plan at the start of the season? I really don't believe it was.

Add in other factors like the long term injuries to Evans, Hitchcox and Peltier and the mitigating factors are starting to accumulate.

I might be wrong with all of the above but this is how I'm trying to justify our current performances in my mind. There has to be something behind why we're playing so poorly, I refuse to believe this is how JK wants us to play. I don't mind us doing the basics but performances like today's go way beyond that.

Hopefully we can just get our heads down and try and finish the last part of the season strongly now. Top 5 would be a bonus but I have a feeling we might just fall short. I can see us finishing 6th or 7th. To be fair, after getting promoted from League 1 last season I'd take that and hope to build on it in 2020.

The cup run and the derby against Leeds will have definitely helped in terms of finances and budgets/cashflow, so that is at least one positive to draw from this season already.

Fair summary

I thought the game was entertaining today. A great cup tie as someone above said it to'd and fro'd a bit and that was exciting. Happy that we've had the cup run for the club's coffers. That's the positives out the way.

We lost in two departments for me. Ball in hand and failing to get our boot on their necks when they had a man in the bin. Other than our first try we offered absolutely nothing in attack today. Lilley's end of set kicks were always too long and gobbled up easily by the backs. Did we even kick for a repeat set today? I can't remember if we did. The lack of ideas in attack was by far the biggest disappointment.

With regards to the sin bin, normally I'm a proponent of taking the points on offer but it's early in the contest and we had a four point lead and the penalty is 20m from their line so why not pile the pressure on and tire their forwards out? Kick for a repeat set even. Anything would have been better than taking the two there. Then what happens. We miss the kick for two and do nothing with the ball in hand because our forwards can't seem to gain the yardage that almost every other team seem to do against us. Then comes the inevitable dropped balls and silly penalties. It was extremely frustrating.

I'm also surprised nobody has mentioned Halifax slowing the play the ball down all game. Not that it had any bearing on the contest but to my mind the Halifax players were much smarter at the ruck and managed to con the referee all game in that department. It seemed to me like the referee blew up for every possible finickity infringement for us but when they were slowing the play the ball the ref turned a blind eye. There was one in the second half where our lad got up to play the ball and the tackler suplexed him back to the floor and the ref told him to get back up. It was laughable.

Abject performance with no ideas in attack. Disappointing.

Sorry Mum

If only we had a creative half who could rip s defiance apart with a bit of magic....



...I’m sure Fev signed one recently....

I thought today was dire. Its dull, dull rugby we play and I can't see many fans saying that they enjoy it.

Our one talismanic player we sold to a rival and he ruthlessly undid our poor play last week. We replaced him with a PT 19-year-old and a on-loan hooker. Our best FB was kindly let go to another rival, and replaced with another kid. Where has THAT money gone? Why have we not replaced them? We have no leaders on the pitch, utterly no idea in attack, and our early season resolute defence is cracking considerably.

I can see that this season WAS about consolidating our position in the league; but if that is the case why make such a big deal of these games? The advertising and media is spot on, but when it gets to the game itself it's like the players can't be ar$ed. The Leeds game was good, yes, but lets not underestimate how utterly woeful Leeds were. It's not like we were back in 2003, cracking out the champagne rugby; we were dull, but lucky. Having said that, there was NONE of the enthusiasm shown from our team against Leeds there today. At least that would have been something.

After last week at Fev, and another £20 spent today I'm trying hard to find a reason to bother going to Odsal next week TBH.

Seem to have ground to a halt, although our injuries have not helped.All this down the middle one out stuff is too predictable.Any progress we make this season is a bonus, but we must surely address the FB issue and we definitely need to grab whatever points are on offer..which points to our unreliable goal kicking options. I wonder how the kids will develop within the style of play JK is adopting and fear we are not going to be entertained any time soon with an expansive game plan. I just hope that some emphasis is going to focus on bringing in an experienced head or two to bind our play into a more consistant and cohesive set up.

Several posters talking about bringing in experience at half back and/or full back

I don't disagree, but who is available?

Genuine question (and please don't bother saying Chisholm, that ship has sailed...)

We are getting into attacking position but not presenting significant problems to the opposition from then on.

No bodies in motion or link play from FB.

Part of that is because we don't have a FB and it doesn't look like we practice anything except moving the ball along the line or a weak kick that is neither a bomb or a chip.

We need some variation in our attacking play. Fax and everybody else knows what we are going to do.

I hope to the Lord Jesus H that this Joe Brown is a FB because Ethan Ryan isnt one. His positional play and finishing is missed out wide.

Before today I would have been happy keeping JL and RM together.
If Keyes is fit then it will be JK and JL. As I've mentioned I hope that this Brown is a FB.

Ryan Brierley did have talks with the club, but we wouldn't meet his wage ask.