Taking It Like A Fan

That was a turn up for the books wasn’t it? It was a first class experience, and no less. Despite the unexpectedly cheap prices, you expect a good service and, boy, it was better than anything I’ve experienced lately. Quick, efficient and above all – classy. Yes, I really would recommend travelling first class on Virgin Trains to anyone. Having booked so far in advance, the swankier route from the capital to Manchester was only a couple of quid more expensive than the regular ticket.

I was down in London for a friend’s birthday – very nice it was too, thanks for asking. I knew at the time it would clash with a Bulls match, but what’s a game of rugby between friends? Well, as long as I don’t miss the Leeds match of course.

Better Than Odsal Anyday...ahem...

As the performances over the past few rounds had been increasingly frustrating, and with Huddersfield performing such an efficient destruction of us earlier in the season, a (very) small part of me was happy to be taking a ”week off”. I wasn’t dropping the team, I was resting them because of exhaustion due to prolonged exposure to underachievement.

There is nothing like following a match when you aren’t at a match. I’m not talking about following commentary on tv, on radio or even on Twitter. Receiving only the simplest updates in text format is like a whole new sport. Checking the score when in a land foreign to Rugby League is the sporting equivalent of Schrödinger’s cat. In your head the team can be winning and losing – it is only once you see the latest result written down that your hopes or fears are confirmed.

I made the mistake of looking up the latest quite early on. Twenty minutes in and ten points up. Nice work, but it wouldn’t last. The fact that any information you might absorb from the BBC live score service is so minimal, it often forces you to create a running commentary via your imagination. Surely we had gone ahead through a fluky couple of tries, or the Giants were simply absorbing the pressure to mount the most efficient comeback since Take That.

A torturous thirty minute tube ride was to follow – not because of the facilities which Londoners seem to undervalue as if it were some transportational version of Jamie Langley, more because of the lack of phone signal. With no possible way to check the score surely we must have gone behind? By the time I had gotten myself sorted on the station platform, it was all over with a phonecall to confirm it – we’d won. Playing well!

What bitter-sweet news to hear. Sure I was pleased, but after all the dross I’ve schlepped to watch over the past few seasons, why did it have to be the one match I missed when they turned on the style? IT JUST WASN’T FAIR.

Two complimentary cans of Pepsi Max and a packet of cheese and onion later, I’d forgotten all about it. It’s sport after all. Even if they had lost 100-0, I’d still be on the terraces next season, and the one after that. The club has been frustrating many a Bradfordian long before I turned up, and hopefully they’ll be doing the same long after I’ve gone.

It isn’t people like me that this match was meant to convince – if you are reading this then chances are the same goes for you too. There has been far too much grumbling, from fans who have been going long enough to know better, that there is little justification in renewing the season ticket for next year. If you discount the whole “we’ve probably left it too late to get in the playoffs” thing, then it really couldn’t have come at a better time for these people. Sure it might be a tease, and it could well be another 18 months before we beat a top side again, but “What ifs” are ingrained in the very nature of sport.

This match wasn’t the be all and end all – at least that’s what I keep telling myself. As I alluded to last week, the pressure is practically off now. Although the next few games may mean almost nothing in terms of reaching the end of season party with the big boys, the confidence they have the potential to bring in matches next season could be invaluable. That’s only if we have the awareness to keep building this momentum though.

What’s that? Two weeks off in the next three because of the cup?

From now on, I’m only making friends with people who have birthday that clash with big games…

Control Fault, Defeat!

A rather peculiar feeling came over me early on in the match against Castleford this weekend. Despite an early 12-0 advantage, it wasn’t joy or excitement at seeing a couple of well worked efforts; it was dread.

A fellow Bulls fan turned to her Cas supporting friend after the second try and simply laughed; “We’ve seen this before, haven’t we?”. There was no malice in what she said, instead chuckling in the face of the unavoidable. It’s a sad reflection on the mindset of our fandom that even the most positive souls have had their outlook permanently rewired to expect glum inevitability.

The following 75 minutes saw the team follow a script so familiar and depressing, it could easily have been mistaken for an Eastenders Christmas special. We may have been in front for sixty five minutes, but it never felt entirely comfortable.

It’s been a similar tale in many of the closely fought matches this (and last) season; although we may be ahead on the scoreboard we never feel in control. At Cas, we went ahead through a wonderful combination of some genuinely good play and the fact our opponents had yet to touch the ball in a meaningful area of the pitch.

Games are not won in the opening few minutes, but the momentum you can build by dominating early often helps. The opportunity was there to take the game by the scruff of the neck, and let the Tigers know what they were in for. Instead they retaliated quickly and the game descended into an entertaining but low quality tit-for-tat tussle. No matter how many times we reinstated the two score advantage, it never felt as if we were the ones in control of our own destiny.

Go, Team!

There is certainly a lack of confidence in the camp. Much has been speculated about an apparent lack of enthusiasm and team spirit, which I don’t fully buy into. Glancing around the ground at full time saw every single man wearing a Bulls shirt on the pitch look utterly gutted. We have reached a point where team spirit may be high, but self belief is low.

Looking at some of the results, it isn’t hard to see why. Regardless of the drubbings, there have been losses where we have come out as being good, but not good enough. Saints at home should have seen us taken away a win, but a failure to fully command proceedings at vital points saw us play out a draw. Fixtures against Catalan (both), Leeds (Home & Millennium Magic) and Hull (away) have all had such a repetitive lack of authority, that digital TV channel ‘Dave’ is rumoured to become the club’s main sponsor.

Not every win has seen us in control either. Crusaders away saw a similar match to Sunday’s, except with the Bulls being on the right end of the scoreline; and the less said about Halifax in the cup, the better.

There is clearly a lot of work that needs doing. As far as the season goes now, any wholesale changes will be shutting the stable door after the Bull has bolted. With players in vital positions up for renewal though, and the pressure presumably off, surely now is the time for the squad to showing a bit of composure if we are to avoid a fourth straight season of “what ifs” in 2012.

Now! That’s What I Call Losing….

After almost a month of respectable results, some fans could be forgiven for forgetting just how glum the trudge home from Odsal can be after a real underperformance. The real kick in the stomach wasn’t just because the team put on a show so bland it could have it’s own slot on commercial radio – it was more the fact the team was unrecognisable from those determined to beat Saints just a week earlier.

In all likelihood, the team is suffering from “The Curse of Midtable Mediocrity”. All too often in sport a team will focus so much energy in trying to get a result against a big name team, that performances in games they have a far better chance of winning drop spectacularly. We saw this almost weekly when teams would play their heart out to get within two scores against a pack containing the awesome foursome. The next week, we’d see they had been battered by their relegation rivals, scratch our heads and mutter “Well they did alright against us!”

Now the boot is on the other foot, this is no less confusing and can be as frustrating as the performances themselves. As I compiled a mental list of the things that went wrong against Hull, I realised I had heard them all so many times before in the past 18 months, it was starting to sound like a greatest hits;

Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go (Wham!)

There can’t be many times we have lost this season after a strong start, mainly because there aren’t many games where we have had one. We start slower than Eric the Eel on Night Nurse and then take the rest of the match to fight our way back into the contest. The Hull match wasn’t our poorest start; the opening seven or eight minutes saw a tight, if slightly shabby, contest. Once we had conceded the first try, it was clear we weren’t fully up to speed with the game, as Hull scored two more in quick succession.

To often we are on the back foot far too early in the match. You shouldn’t have to be fighting to stay in the game after twenty minutes when you play the team one place above you in the league.

Our Time is Running Out (Muse)

Similarly, the Bulls do have the ability to drag themselves back into a game but usually only when it’s too late. Two quick tries before half time seemed to give us some temporary momentum, but this failed to continue in the second half. It took another FC try to spark the lads back into action again, but “too little, too late” is fast becoming the favourite to overtake “This is a transitional year” as the club motto.

Take a Chance On Me (Abba)

We had plenty of periods of sustained pressure on the Hull line, but made it all too easy for their defence by almost willingly turning over possession. This squad create more chances than their counterparts in 2009-10, yet they unnecessarily waste a lot of it through the pressure they put themselves under. With so many close games going against us, a lack of killer instinct in these situations has become repeatedly costly.

Stuck In The Middle With You (Stealers Wheel)

Referee Phil Bentham may have had clowns to the left and right of him in the form of his touch judges, but on the whole I wouldn’t have wanted to be a part of the officiating team this weekend. When two sides as indisciplined as that take to the field, both sets of fans are going to feel hard done by at some point in the game.

I’m not entirely convinced the standard of refereeing has deteriorated as much as people say it has. I think we have gradually become a genuinely poorly disciplined side over the past five years. Early signs showed Potter had started to iron this out, but it has slowly crept back in. Ref’s are taking far to much blame, especially on the Odsal terraces, for simple mistakes that players make.

I Hate You So Much Right Now (Kelis)

No matter how poorly the team plays, there is always someone who is singled out to get it in the neck. Ah Van currently holds the title of public enemy number one, after an admittedly shocking couple of games. Whilst I can see the argument for resting him next week – his confidence must be shot and I am not completely convinced he is fit – it always amuses me that a clubs fortunes could turn around, if only the latest underperformer were to be dropped. It didn’t seem to work when Worrency, Platt and Sykes were left out; Ah Van will be no different.

Can’t Buy Me Love (The Beatles)

I was three tickets away from winning the Golden Gamble, only a few weeks after being twelve tickets away. I hope the club hasn’t been taking tips from FIFA, as a more cynical man than myself might start getting suspicious.

It’s Not Over Yet… (Klaxons)

…technically anyway. As irrational as it seems, it’s hard to say with any certainty that the playoffs are a closed shop . Despite missing out in the past two seasons, points wise we haven’t been that far off getting in. If anyone was to swap places with Hull, I’d say we would be the most probable along with Hull KR. Bare in mind the use of the word “probable” should be used in the same way that it is “probable” we could sign Benji Marshall.

This match was a big chance blown though. A win would far from secured a place at the end of season party, but a foot in the door would have been nice. The good thing about sport is there is always next week to get back on the horse, and what better way to do it than against…er…Leeds.

Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life

Repeat to Fade

No Loan Again, Naturally

It’s may be a well worn cliché around the terraces at Odsal nowadays, but five years really does make such a difference in sport. If we had heard half a decade ago that Willie Mason was to join the Bulls for a loan spell, the marketing department would have gone into an overdrive so spectacular, it would have made Hull KR’s similar trumpeting of him a few months back look perfectly reasonable in comparison.

As it stands in 2011, it seems circumstances have dictated that the Bulls are keen on getting dragged in on an affair messier than the one between the girl from Big Brother and the footballer who can’t be named (but everyone knows the identity of regardless).

It’s no secret that Mason is no longer the force he was. After an impressive debut against Crusaders, his impact upon Rover’s fortunes have been disproportional to the fanfare he received upon his arrival. He certainly hasn’t been dreadful, but with the sheer amount of negativity surrounding his registration at Craven Park, or lack thereof, it is natural to be apprehensive about Willie signing for us.

For a club that has generally shied away from bringing in marquee names in the Super League era, it might well provide a much needed boost to a season which isn’t going as smoothly as most might hope. However, big names for us tend to fall into one of three categories;

The Good

Henry Paul – This might have been one of the most inspired signings in the club’s history. Instantly recognisable, it was a real “wow” moment when the much rumoured link-up with brother Robbie was confirmed. Although it was heartbreaking when he left for Rugby Union, he had achieved practically everything in the domestic game in just three seasons with us. A legend who never outstayed his welcome.

Honourable Mention – Steve Menzies

The Bad

Sean Edwards – When you look back at the career of one of the greatest players of the past 20 years, it’s always slightly startling to remember that Sean ever played for Bradford. Like Mason, Sean had a cracking début for us against the Giants in 1998, but following that he struggled to come anywhere close to the form that had made him so admired at Wigan.

In retrospect, it’s easy to personify this as an excuse of our poor defence of our first ever Super League title. The bust up between Edwards and Graham Bradley seemed completely contradictory to the spirit that was the strength of the squad the previous year. What could have been a match made in heaven ended up as a rather bizarre footnote in RL history.

The Ugly

Iestyn Harris – This isn’t a comment on his playing ability, although he never truly found the form that made him such a big name at Leeds. Specifically, his unwitting part in a game of one-upmanship so unnecessary it would make Piers Morgan and Alan Sugar think twice before getting involved.

The ramifications of this signing are still have been discussed endlessly and we may never know the full extent of the damage Iestyn arriving at Odsal had on the club. Although Harris had his fair share of decent games, this is far outweighed by the abruptness of our decline that the signing brought about.

Honourable Mention – Matt Orford. His hasty departure is already having an unwelcome affect on our half-back options in 2011.

In the past day or so, Mason has tweeted he isn’t particularly interested in joining our club; with the big money apparently on the table for him in French Rugby Union this shouldn’t be a massive shock. Many have suggested that getting a big name – Mason or otherwise – to join the club sooner rather than later might give us a temporary boost. Whoever we get, we’d need someone in the mould of Henry Paul rather than another Edwards/Harris/Orford situation. The question is – who?

Take A Chance On Me

I suppose headline writers were the real winner of last night’s derby clash with Leeds. They didn’t have to waste precious time having to dream up a variation on “Bulls finally win”, instead airing out the old favourite “Leeds leave it late” – which has been trotted out so many times over the last few seasons it must be getting as tatty as our defence against Salford.

If a better performance was what was required after last Saturday, then there can’t really be any complaints with the way the game started. The forwards seemed to gain ground with a greater ease than we might have had any right to expect and, early on at least, we did our best to capitalise on it.

As the game wore on though, chances repeatedly fell by the wayside through poor kicking options, lazy handling or just pure bad luck. By contrast, any time Leeds seemed to get close to our line, they made sure to come away with repeat sets or points. The Rhinos may have had less chances, but they made far more of them – a recurring theme not only this season, but of the past few years.

It is unclear why the Bulls are so poor at converting chances. They have the courage and ability to make the yards to get into prime point scoring positions, but then lack any real killer instinct to consistently finish them off.

The lack of familiarity could be to blame; some fans are certainly tiring of that being an excuse for inadequacy but that doesn’t make it any less true. When the starting line up can vastly change week to week, it is hardly surprising that consistency is as elusive as a clean tackle by Brent Webb.

It is the little things that must get to the team most, though. The bounce of the ball and 50/50 calls that give you the extra edge when you are winning, feel like the greatest injustices when you are losing. For a long time we’ve seen far too few of either.

It isn’t too surprising that there is a direct correlation between the gradually decreasing nature of these calls in which you make your own luck and our last defeat of a “big team”. It has been well over a year since we beat Wigan at Odsal – in the interim every other team in the league has had a result or two that has made other fans choke on their cornflakes over the League Express on a Monday morning.

We are surely due one soon, and for 65 minutes yesterday, we came close. But much like the matches against Leeds (Millenium Magic 2011, Home 2010), Catalan (Home, 2010), Hull FC (Home, 2010), Salford (Home, 2010) and Warrington (Home, League and Cup 2010) we walk away questioning how we can be dominant in such significant periods of the game and not convert these chances into enough points to take home the win.

The Life of Brian

It’s not often that Bradford city centre gets on TV. Outside local news reports of councillors assuring us that work on Broadway really is starting this time, honest guv, appearances for our once great shopping hub on the box are much like the decent shops left in the city; few and far between.

So it was good to see the old girl in High Definition, no less, on Sky Sports last Thursday courtesy of Brian Carney’s excellent interview/profile show Super League’s Super Men. Taking place in Bradford’s City Hall – its first starring role since doubling as Weatherfield Crown Court when Tracy Barlow murdered her boyfriend in Corrie – Carney was there to interview freeman of the city and chewing gum enthusiast, Brian Noble.

I had this down as must see TV since stumbling across the trailer during the previous weekend’s Sky fixtures. I thought a lot of Bulls fans might have done the same, as we were teased tender tidbits such as Nobby’s thoughts on being “pushed out from the club”; a subject which has had much speculation but precious little on the record. As it turned out, there has been disappointingly little comment on the show.

Perhaps this shouldn’t be too surprising, as there were no real bombshells unearthed. What we were presented with instead was a series of entertaining nuggets from the first decade of Super League.

One of the most telling was that when signing a new player, it wasn’t all about size and power (“…although that certainly did help!” he quipped). Noble instead put more of an emphasis on how good a bloke they were and if they would click with the already existing camaraderie.

Initially this seems the sort of soft touch David Brent might apply to recruitment, but luckily Noble is bigger than that; the departures of Stuart Reardon from Odsal and Sean Long from the 2006 tri-nations tour down under come immediately to mind. To Nobby, the character and commitment of a player are as key to success as their skill and talent on the pitch and it’s these man-management skills that seem to be all-too-often overlook.

The most interesting section of the interview was always going to be the discussion of Noble’s departure from the club. It wasn’t discussed in too much depth – strangely Nobby said much of the saga was “well documented”. This may well be true, but I remember much of it was rumour and hearsay rather than anything official.

He confirmed that when Wigan came knocking, the management at the Bulls thought it would be in his best interests to see what they had to offer. Reading between the lines, it seems this created sufficient friction to set in motion the events that eventually saw him become part of the Piedome’s upper crust.

It’s hard to forget the last match Noble had in charge. Huddersfield at home was he second of the Easter fixtures, and if there had been mere whispers of something afoot the previous Thursday at Headingley, the rumours had now reached unbearably deafening levels. At the end of the match, he walked over to the stand to be greeted by one of the warmest standing ovations the terraces had offered in many a year. Few people were left in doubt that this was Brian Noble’s final bow as Bradford Bulls coach.

Noble himself wasn’t as convinced as the Bulls faithful, though. He told Brian Carney that at the end of that match he genuinely still didn’t know whether to move to Wigan or not. He stayed in the dressing room mulling it over well into the early hours of the following morning, wrangling with what must have been an awful decision.

It is unlikely that anyone coming to this would be surprised that Nobby has such passion for the club and the city. Even now in his new found role as a hire-a-pundit, you’ll be hard pressed to find any footage of him doing the team down. He’s not likely to admit it whilst looking for work elsewhere in the league, but the clues are there that he is red, amber and black through and through. It would be nice to think that with enough water passing under the bridge, he will return to Odsal in some capacity in the future.

Super League’s Super Men won’t necessarily change your mind about Noble either way. With Sky lacking the foresight to make this series available on demand, you aren’t likely to get the chance to anyway. But should you stumble across this little gem at some point in the future, it’s well worth investing half an hour of your time to get a little more insight into our most successful period ever.

Don’t Panic!

The most prominent thought in my head coming out of the ground on Friday night – bar the fact that £3.50 for a bottle of cider wasn’t too unreasonable at a sports match – was that the loss to Saints was by far the best loss of the season so far.

Rather than ending in collapse, or being out of the contest before the dust has had time to settle on Bullman’s parade, the Bulls seemed much more at ease with the match from the outset. The confidence from the win against Cas a few days earlier simply oozed from the players. When Saints piled on the points after Paul Sykes was sent to the sin-bin, it could have been so easy to see the squad collapse and take another 40+ point pounding, but whenever we had the full compliment of players on the pitch, the sides were surprisingly evenly matched. Even when Sykes returned, playing the ball remained quick, as did distribution, and we mostly contained Saints to the middle of the pitch. It would have been interesting to see the outcome of the match, had both sides remained disciplined enough to keep 26 players on the pitch for the duration.

There is always going to be disappointment at a loss, that is part of the wonder that is sport. It was thought by some that because Saints aren’t as dominant as in previous years coupled with some dodgy home form, that Bradford should have gotten more out of the match than they managed to.

Of course saying Saints aren’t as strong means very little to the majority of the teams in Super League. If we take a look at our spherical balled cousins over in the Premiership, Manchester United have had the same accusation made of them all season. Yet, with less than two months of their campaign left, they are in prime position to take the top prize come May.

The same can be said of Saints, just because they aren’t packing the same awesome firepower that has taken them to countless Grand Finals over the past decade and a half, it doesn’t mean we’d be rubbing our hands with glee should we meet them in a knockout game further down the line.

On being handed the fixture list in late November, most Bulls fans would have mentally put Friday’s fixture down as a loss. In fact, pretty much all of our matches so far have followed what I would have predicted before the first ball in Cardiff was kicked. The main disappointments have been the sheer efficiency in the way Wigan and Huddersfield defeated us, rather than simply being defeated.

We have had a pretty tough start to the season, playing four of the five major contenders for silverware this year. That is why the next three games in particular are going to be interesting, as it was about this point when looking through the fixtures that it began hard to predict an outcome. Quins, Hull and Salford are all games where we have the potential to pick up points, but they all managed to beat us at one point or another last year.

It is these sort of fixtures we should be targeting if we are to make the playoffs this year, as it was these sort of losses that has lead us to missing them completely. Losing to Saints has never been easy, but it happened loads when were at our best – you’d think we’d be used to it by now.

If we happen to beat teams at the top this year, then that’s a pleasant bonus; but is games such as the next three where we should be aiming to win more competition points than we drop. Only then can really judge how far we have come this season, and I’m betting it’s not as bad as you think.