On Bulls twitter site it's different to the above. There is no Brad England but Flanagan is in there. Which is correct? I hope England is playing. Also why no place for Myers who was good last week (far better than Oakes) and what has happened to the loan prop from Hull. What a waste of time it was signing him.

Myers could well be a fitness issue only playing 20 mins atm and looks fairly unfit - example being his 80m break caught twice and was done towards the end I could see us using 5 props for this one

England won’t be playing as his foot was still in a protective boot last night

Lad from Hull had Covid so Must still not be fit enough to play, can’t be helped

Fully agree with Bull Mania's summary of the situation.
Very sorry to hear that England is unavailable, arguably our best forward. Disappointed not to see Myers again, I thought he looked a threat on Sunday. Just hope the season which I've mostly enjoyed, doesn't end on a whimper. Clearly whoever wins on Saturday is likely to get bashed by Fev and Toulouse. Whitehaven must fancy their chances though.
Does conceding home advantage to Batley hit us badly in the pocket? I don't know how play off gate receipts are distributed.
Also, I thought the pitch had been widened and the corners sorted, but last Sunday it looked back to being narrow. Was that due to the abysmal state of the track, or were my eyes deceiving me?

Same issues. Not enough desperation to hang on there late in the half.

Can't see us coming back from this unless Batley tire and we have some barge over tries. We look lost.

Can see this being Featherstone 2016 all over again

A million sets and we don't look like scoring. Batley have one set on the half way and go up hill and score Gutless

yup sad end to the season after we had done so well .... last 4/5 weeks we've just not been there

Credit to Batley, they 'wanted it more'. Some of that goal-line defence was awesome

We look totally one-dimensional. Five ponderous drives and then a floated kick from Brough. Predictable and easy enough to defend against once you've worked it out (which Batley did)

Far too many players look out of shape as well. Who is responsible for conditioning these days, because they aren't doing much it seems?

I'm reluctant to join the 'Kear out' brigade but I do wonder if we've gone as far as we can with him. But who would we get who could really take us to the next level? It feels like there is more to come from this squad, but we aren't gelling as a team in the way that teams like...well, Batley, are doing

Kear isn't going anywhere so you can forget about that. I found his comments in his post match interview interesting, describing this season as more of a consolidation after the Chalmers mess but expecting to be genuine contenders next season. Those are some big words, so we'll see how the squad changes between now and next season because the players we currently have are nowhere near being contenders.

As for today's game, I like Elliot Kear but he doesn't work as an attacking pivot from fullback. Pickersgill is pretty lousy defensively but our string of defeats have coincided with his absense because we're missing what he brings with ball in hand. Kear doesn't have the pace or the fast hands that Pickers has and you could tell that we were playing the same system today and it wasn't working. Our plays ended with the ball in Kear's hands more times than I could count.
And when those plays didn't work, we looked lost in terms of a plan B. Our last tackle options were atrocious - at one point we had Anthony Walker throwing a (forward) pass to Jordan Lilley on a crash ball! Absolute madness.

I'm not too fussed about us losing because all it has really done is save us from an absolute mullering next week.

Agree with Nothus, Kear at FB definitely isn't an option going forward. That Hall looked decent though.

So frustrating how we've just thrown a decent season away. Today, we just seemed to hope Batley would tire. They were there for the taking with all those errors. But we have too many players who were happy to take the ball up and that's it. Not that next level of wanting to score a try or make a break.

We definitely lack a player or two who can break the line and create something with some pace or clever footwork. We seem to have assembled a side which only option is to try and run over the opposition and when we come up against a resilient defence such as Batley we are found wanting.

Next year definitely feels like last chance saloon with some of the current crop of youngsters before they’re picked off by SL clubs. Doyle will be off after next season and if we are lucky we might hold onto Scurr or possibly get him back on loan. So I would probably say it’s also the last chance for Kear to have a crack at SL before he retires or moves on.

With our budget and set up we're not serious contenders for SL. We're a second tier club capable of springing the odd surprise. The 2019 squad was going places and had potential but we had to sell most of it because of Chalmers over spending.

Either just enjoy some of the games and tolerate the mediocrity or find something else to do. That's all we can do. The game has moved on on without us. Until a new owner appears with money to burn this is it.

Did anyone notice (I think it was Brown) stamp on Flanagan's ankle? I wonder if anything will happen about this. If it had been the other way round George would be looking at a 5 match ban.

Flanagan has copped a few cheap shots in last few weeks and to be fair he has kept his cool, where in previous seasons he might have retaliated and be penalised.

I wouldn't have given him a new deal back in March but I think he earned a new contract as understudy to Doyle.

Such are our lack of attacking options, Flanagan is our biggest threat

That second half domination should have netted us a minimum of 4 tries with some even basically competent creative work. Despite having Brough and Lilley that was like watching us with one halfback again. Creatively dreadful. I found it so frustrating and irritating seeing us just trying to bludgeon our way through a perfectly solid defensive team like Batley. We might let people walk through us but they certainly don't.

If you take a look at the team that took to the field, its clear to see that we are poor in the forwards and there just isn't enough quality or attacking threat out wide.

Next year we look to be addressing the latter but it won't matter if we don't sort out the forwards too. Fleming keeping his place in the squad is a total joke, Rooks is just not good enough and certainly no better than Gallagher, Hallas looks like he's packed his bags ready for Newcastle already (if that is true) and Walker looks a totally different player from the one that signed a new 1yr deal.

The main concern for me remains the coaching. I said it at the start of the season and I'll say it again. 5 drives and a kick is what you will continue to get with Kear. Dunning a cheap option at no.2 will not bring much else to the table.

Next year we will have Leigh back in the league, one of either Fev or Toulouse, Halifax with Keyes and a full time Newcastle. For me, 5th again would be the best we could hope for.

We are where we are. Even with a change of coach the quality of the side will remain broadly the same. The addition of a decent centre will hopefully help but we need to get the ball to him and that depends on the forwards winning up front and halfbacks having some idea how to open a defence.

Too many players seem to want to only perform when it suits them. We put the cue on the rack after winning at York and I think from then on some players have been planning the end of season party and their moves elsewhere.

5th next year looks about right provided we don't get any injuries and improve our attitude.

I agree that the signings of Gill and Hall should sort some issues of strike out wide. Kear isn't a full back.

I think we're missing a real mongrel of a prop and destructive back-rower. We have a lot of workers but really missed a game breaker on Saturday. We're not a bad team as we threw away third spot. But there's certainly areas we need to improve and add some quality.

The biggest thing we need to sort is attitude in defence. We've conceded 100 points more than Batley & 150 more than Halifax. We seem to have conceded so many just before half time or allowed teams to go back to back. As frustrating as us not scoring enough on Saturday was, the real sickener for me was despite us spending nearly the entire second half on Batleys try line, when Batley did eventually get the ball in our half, they scored instantly GOING UP HILL. It was like we didn't think we needed to defend. All down to attitude to defence that.

Totally agree that attitude is an issue. Some excuses could be made for inconsistency given the various absences we've had due to covid etc but basic defending and kick chase has been very poor at times and we've been out enthused.

In attack we've looked very predictable some weeks and really good other weeks. Losing Pickersgill was a blow to the attack since this season he's looked much more the part in attack (less so in defence). Think Kear would need time to get used to the position but like you I agree he's more of a winger.

We do need a few players with some more quality. Not sure we can afford them though. As for the head coach I think his own professionalism can't be questioned but I worry a bit that players aren't respecting or responding to him when we can play badly and they can still be selected.

Well it seems if you’re a Wales favourite you cannot be dropped despite losing your side the game and offering nothing when you’re given another chance to redeem yourself in the next match. To say Fleming has some size to him, he rarely seems to punch through the defence from what I’ve seen him which admittedly is a bit limited by my own admission. I’d rather we’d kept a Kirk, at least he was a grafter.

I see he got away with it at the RFL naughty boys meeting.

Well he got found guilty of intentionally standing on an opponent, yet its grade A zero games. I must be missing something if intentionally standing on an opponent is worth zero games.

You're dead right. What a ridiculous rule, guilty but zero ban. What's that about. Like I said before if it had been George a 5 game ban would ensue.