Exciting times!

Another weekend of thrills and spills has marked the end of the regular season. The intensity was maintained up to the end, with Bradford getting a last gasp two points to ensure a proper shakeup of the teams in 4th, 5th and 6th position. So on Friday it was Warrington, Wigan, Bradford, and now it’s Wigan, Bradford, Warrington. Wigan thoroughly deserved their point, after a real battle at Knowsley Road ended in a draw, but Warrington looked like a team on the way out. By all accounts Bradford were pretty uninspiring too.

It’s also true to say that the lack of relegation has not made the end of the season in any way dull or disappointing. Obviously Castleford and Huddersfield had pride to play for, as was the case in the local derby of Hull against Hull KR yesterday. And Harlequins also showed that they wanted to end the season with a flourish, with a win over Catalans. Have the French team peaked too soon? Bradford may feel that some euqilibrium has been restored with a finish in fifth, but they could have had a better chance heading to France than to Wigan. They haven’t beaten Wigan away since Februray 2005, and last season’s humiliation at Odsal in the first round of the playoffs will take some forgetting. One crumb of comfort for Bradford will be that the match will be played on neutral ground as the JJB stadium is unavailable next Friday. Warrington will be lucky to progress any further after travelling to France on Saturday.

So my predictions for next week’s eliminator are Catalans v Wigan. I think St Helens will beat Leeds next week, but that in the end it will be another Leeds v St Helens final. This year though, St Helens look set to win, and to complete the treble again, as they show no signs of flagging at the end of the season as they did last year.

In my blog of 31 August the only two placings I got right were Bradford and Warrington, so I will wait to see if my predictions for the final four and the eventual winner are correct. Let’s hope Bradford can confound everyone and make a surge for the top! My dream would be: Bradford beat Wigan, Catalans beat Warrington, St Helens beat Leeds, Bradford beat Catalans, Bradford beat Leeds, Bradford beat St Helens. I’m definitely daydreaming!!

Are Wigan up to the challenge?

Usually by this time, the last weekend of the regular competition, the League Leader’s Shield has been decided and the top six placings are just about cemented. This year, however, the only certainty is that the Catalans Dragons will finish third, and that they will play a home tie in Perpignan next week. The rest of the six is still in the balance.

Leeds would have to beat Wakefield by a pretty big margin tonight, but it could happen, and if St Helens lose tonight Leeds could find themselves at the top of the table.

The big question is, can Wigan break their duck and finally manage to beat St Helens? Wigan have suffered three heavy defeats this season to their derby rivals. You would think that if ever there was a chance to get the better of their bogey team, this was it. Surely the St Helens team must be fatigued after their exhausting win in the Wembley heat over Hull FC in last week’s Challenge Cup Final. And the conditions tonight are likely to be wet and heavy, so rather than relying on skill, the result could rest with whoever can hang on to the ball and have the strength to keep going for 80 minutes. Teams are well known to relax, even if subconsciously, the week after a big victory, and the St Helens players are only human (I think!).

Wigan have not won at Knowsley Road for five years, and St Helens have a run of 22 wins to their name. Sean O’Loughlin, Gareth Hock and Mark Calderwood are missing for Wigan, but Pat Richards is back, and Stuart Fielden is beginning to look dangerous. St Helens are fielding a strong team, with Nick Fozzard replacing the injured Paul Sculthorpe. It’s a difficult one to call, but I just wonder if Wigan might snatch it tonight. If Warrington lose tomorrow, that could mean 4^th place and a home draw for Wigan, which would be enough to play for even without the added incentive of getting one over on their local rivals.

The Playoffs beckon!

I can’t believe that the season is almost over, it seems to have hardly started. As usual it has been a rollercoaster ride, with fascinating twists and turns, loss of form, injuries, unexpected defeats, miraculous wins, sacked coaches etc, along the way. In a week’s time we will know who will be where in the top six, and then the playoffs begin. Six teams know that their season is almost over, while the other six begin to crank up the pressure. Knockout rugby is so nerve-wracking for fans, but it is so incredibly exciting when your team wins, although there can only be a day or two of euphoria before the worry about next week’s match begins. October 5 will seem very flat, even if your team has won the Grand Final, because it means no more Superleague until February 2009, which seems a million miles away. It would be great if the Grand Final is not between Leeds and St Helen’s, as it would mean that the playoffs have been exciting and unpredictable. Though it looks at the moment as if St Helen’s are unbeatable and Leeds are just coming back into form, so I suppose a Leeds/St Helen’s final would give us all a great spectacle on current form. When they played each other in the Challenge Cup semi-final Leeds were not at their best and the game was a bit of an anti-climax. It would be pretty amazing if Catalans were to get to the final after only three seasons in Superleague. But as a Bradford fan I obviously don’t want that to happen, as that would probably mean they had knocked Bradford out along the way. As far as I am concerned my favoured scenario would be Bradford beating Catalans in Perpignan, then beating the next team, then meeting Leeds at Headingley in the final eliminator and getting glorious revenge for all the defeats inflicted on them by Leeds this season! Oh, and then beating St Helen’s in style. But I can’t quite see it somehow.

Just looking at my predictions for the top six in my first post. They were Leeds, St Helens, Wigan, Catalans, Bradford, Warrington. When we know the final positions next week, it could be that all my six are in the wrong order! I can’t wait to find out. Andy Wilson regularly reports in the Guardian on the journalists’ tipping competition, and they don’t seem any better at getting it right than I am.

Faded glory

What can lift Bradford Bulls out of the doldrums and give them back the success that they used to have?

The trouble is I think Bradford believes they can just turn up to win, without realising that times have changed, they have to work for success, they no longer have a dominant pack, and have become mediocre rather than a force to be reckoned with.  I know that money has played its part in reducing the team from one full of internationals, to one with a few possibles, some past internationals and a number of very so-so individuals.  But surely even with the team they have they should be able to put together a better performance than the one against Harlequins last week, and come to think of it the one against Wakefield the week before, and Warrington the week before, and Huddersfield the week before that.  I dread to think how things are going to be against Leeds on Friday (and against a Leeds team smarting from their Challenge Cup exit and their defeat to Warrington last Friday).  It could be another really embarrassing evening for the Bradford fans, followed by listening to Steve McNamara’s excuses about why it wasn’t as bad as it looked.  I see that Bradford are fielding a part-timer and two lads from the Academy.  Haven’t they got enough fit first team players left?  At the start of the season they seemed to have a good-sized squad, even if it was unexciting, but there seems to be hardly any one left now. 

I know they have been unlucky with injuries – although I am Paul Deacon’s biggest fan, I never quite realised how pivotal to the team he was until last year when he was missing at the crucial end of season, and this year when he has been missing again for quite some time.  Perhaps the truth is that his quality wasn’t quite as noticeable  when the team around him was of a higher quality, when we had Vainikolo and Hape, and Fielden, and Peacock, and Pryce.  How I wish we could acquire some players of that quality now.  And of course the loss of Morrison is a huge blow, not just as a player but as a force on the field.  Burgess too is a great team player, always energetic and purposeful, and he is badly missed.  Why did Bradford give a new 3-year deal to the decidedly suspect Platt?  He can be very good, but he can also be very, very bad, and often makes mistakes in dire places and at crucial times of the match.  Halley also makes a lot of mistakes but he is a much more reliable full back than Platt.

This season more than any other Bradford have looked lost for much of the match, and whereas in the past you could feel confident that though they might play badly for part of the match, they would probably be able to pick it up when it mattered, there is no such confidence this season.  I just wonder if Bradford have never quite recovered from the awful humiliation of that loss to Wigan at the end of last season, and that their confidence has been terminally dented.  Let’s hope Steve Menzies is a magician, and that he and the tremendous Morrison can re-inject some steel into the Bradford team.  I believe that playing well and winning is all in the mind, and if the team has confidence in itself, and is just that, a team – then it can win matches.  Any team could be like St Helens if they put their mind to it, and play for each other and not as individuals.  Is this coaching, inherent skill, or just luck?  I was a big advocate of Steve McNamara when he became head coach, but my confidence in him has ebbed away.  I don’t believe that the players at Leeds or St Helens are so much better than the Bradford side, they just have belief as a team, they work together and they are successful because they know they can win.  Bradford needs a coach who can instil that sort of spirit into the team, because at the moment it is sadly lacking, and if they can hang on to sixth spot it will be a miracle.  Most fans have already abandoned this year and are desperately hoping for some big improvements next year.

Referees – you can’t live with them, you can’t live without them!

Well, you couldn’t have a match of any kind without a referee, it would just be a free-for-all.  So you have to have them, and on the whole in rugby league they do a pretty good job.  They work extremely hard during a match, apparently running an average of about 10k per match,and more often than not they are in the right position to judge whether or not an infringement has occurred.  Usually they have the respect of the players even though they may not agree with decisions made.  Of course the fans hate them, but that is just in the nature of being a fan, anything which goes against your team is obviously wrong!

But I do feel that the penalty count has gone crazy this year.  In the Bradford v st Helen’s match on Friday the penalty count was 19 -6 in St Helen’s favour.  I’m not sure that was fair in itself, but the fact is there were 25 penalties in the game, which slows the game and makes it frustrating and irritating for players and spectators.  Sometimes there have been as many as 28 penalties in a game. Obviously there are occasions when players try to milk a penalty, and occasions when there should be a penalty and it is missed, but on the whole surely it would be better for the game if the referees could be slightly less picky and the game could flow more readily.

The favourite infringement this year seems to be defenders in front of the referee when they are waiting for play to recommence after a tackle is completed.  Apparently they are supposed to have both feet behind the official.  We are now x rounds into the competition, and the penalty count for that transgression has not reduced at all.  Surely it is time to take a more relaxed view of that particular rule?  I watched a game recently (was it the challenge cup quarter final between Bradford and Hull FC) where the referee (Richard Silverwood) seemed to decide to take a hard line from the first minute on the offside rule, and play was continually stopped, with the inevitable sin-binning of a player from each side.  It meant that there was no free-flowing play, and the first half was consequently the worst half of a rugby league match I have ever seen. The Guardian  comments on this year’s stringent enforcement of the rules, and subsequent reduction in enjoyment of the game, in a recent article.

I do believe, however, that it is vital for the referee to ensure there is discipline on the field.  For instance, I’m certainly not in favour of players talking back to the referee.  Chris Thorman was sin-binned on Sunday for back chat, and Luke Robinson was sent off for using foul language, and that’s fair enough, it’s supposed to be a family sport, and whatever we think of the refs, they have to be in charge and be seen to take a firm line.  But there is a difference between a firm line and being officious, and I think that referees often confuse the two. This weekend we have seen two full-on battles in rugby league matches, at Leeds v Harlequins and Wakefield v Huddersfield. I know it’s a high-octane sport and players get very pumped up, but it’s the referee’s job to ensure discipline on the field, and fights occur when players get frustrated, often with the decisions of the referee.

Refereeing must be a very difficult job, you are always in the wrong with both sets of fans, and it must take someone pretty thick-skinned to do it.  They do need to be supported even if their decisions are wrong, and on the whole the six full-time refs seem to do a pretty good job of getting it right most of the time.  But if only they could do their job without being quite so whistle-happy, I would be much more satisfied with their performance.

 

Can McNamara Stay?

In my last post I talked about the recent sackings of superleague coaches, and I was inclined to the view that it doesn’t really solve any problems.

However, further thought and the events of the past week have made me review that opinion. For a start, Warrington lifted their game for Jimmy Lowes the caretaker coach at the weekend to beat Harlequins, who have been playing well this season. Matt King, who has been a major under-achiever at Wolves, scored one of the tries and set up another. Hull FC, now coached by Richard Agar, beat Bradford convincingly in the Challenge Cup quarter-final, and played pretty well against St Helen’s and Leeds. Both Warrington and Hull still have significant injury problems, but were able to come up with victories nevertheless. We don’t yet know how Huddersfield will respond to the sacking of Jon Sharpe, as they have had a couple of weeks off, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see significant improvement when they play next weekend.

Which brings me to Bradford, as surely Steve McNamara must be looking anxiously over his shoulder at the moment.  Bradford too have serious injury problems, most importantly to Paul Deacon and Glenn Morrison, and they have struggled ever since those two were sidelined.   In this week’s League Weekly Emily Parker expresses the view that McNamara is unlikely to be sacked, due to the fact that he is popular with the Board, and that Bradford did not spend money on big-name signings (once again due to the Harris saga and the possibly payment of costs) so presumably there is less that can be achieved by them.  I have a problem with this second view, as that seems to imply that the Board and coach never expected Bradford to do well this year, and were in fact resigned to be second-rate this year.  The knock-on effect of that, however, would be that the fans would become disillusioned and desert the club, which does in fact seem to be happening if the 8,400 crowd yesterday (the lowest by far this season) is anything to go by.  Then there will be no income to pay for any big signings in the future, and the club will never be able to break back into the top echelons of the sport.  The play-offs themselves bring in much needed revenue to clubs, and if Bradford don’t get into the top six that will be a major loss for them.  Peter Hood, the Bradford Chairmand, writes encouragingly in today’s Bradford Telegraph and Argus that better times will be coming.  I’m just not sure that the club can look to the long term if it loses a large part of its fan-base in the meantime.

Leaving that aside, I am still not convinced of McNamara’s credentials.  It seems to me that since he took over, when the crunch has come the Bulls has failed to achieve.  Granted he has had a difficult time, taking over in the middle of the season with a side which was not of his making, and then losing Stuart Fielden to Wigan soon afterwards.  He has also lost Leslie Vainikolo, who was a great crowd-pleaser even when not at his best, and will soon lose Shontayne Hape, another very popular player (though one who has done almost nothing this year, he seems to be coasting along waiting for June 30 to come).  Iestyn Harris is a spent force and it must be a great relief that he is out of contract at the end of the season. The worry over how much might have to be paid out to settle that courtcase must have restricted spending on players.

But I still think back to the play-offs last season, when Bradford squandered a 30-6 lead over Wigan and crashed out 31-30.  I remember seeing 3 important players taken off (I think they were Lynch, Solomona and McKenna, but I can’t be sure) and thinking that was a bit unwise, so soon after the start of the second half.  It turned out to be an impossibly foolish decision for a coach to have made, I think McNamara thought he was home and dry and could afford to rest some players for the following week.  Up to that point I was very up-beat about having a new young British coach in charge, but my belief in his judgement was seriously damaged by that decision.  Now I am wondering, if Bradford cannot reverse their losing trend, and if they find themselves outside the top six in the next few weeks, can the Board afford to maintain their faith in McNamara?  Only time will tell …..

Who’d be a Coach!

When does a coach become vulnerable? When his side has lost a certain number of games, or when they are not where they are expected to be in the table. The Boards of clubs can start to panic, worrying about loss of revenue, damaging the profile of the club, and most importantly, keeping the fans happy. Sometimes it seems that the only course of action they can come up with is to get rid of the coach, even when that coach has given the club great success in the past.

Last year Huddersfield got off to a really bad start, losing their first seven matches, without even injuries to blame. But the Board kept faith with the coach Jon Sharp and the club recovered and even made the playoffs for the first time. In that case patience was certainly the best policy.

John Kear took Hull to a Challenge Cup victory in 2005, yet he was sacked in 2006 because the club was not doing as well as had been hoped. Now he is hailed as doing a brilliant job at Wakefield, saving them from relegation in 2006 and getting them to a point where they are hovering outside the top 6 now, and still in with a chance of a Challenge Cup victory too. Did he suddenly become a different, more effective coach when he arrived at Wakefield? Similarly, Wigan got rid of Ian Millward in 2006 due to the club’s poor performance. But surely this losing streak was due to the glut of injured players rather than Millward having become a poor coach after leaving St Helen’s. Brian Noble then came in and “saved” Wigan, but wasn’t that more because he was lucky enough to get players back from injury than because of any miraculous coaching skills.

Karl Harrison was hit by a large number of injuries at Salford last year, and their poor performance led to him getting the sack. But even when players came back from injury, the new coach Sean McRae couldn’t save Salford from relegation.

Now despite no relegation, two coaches have gone this season. Hull FC have sacked Peter Sharp after the team have under-performed so far this year, after winning the Challenge Cup in 2005 and reaching the Grand Final two years ago. But the start of their season was blighted by injuries, and it’s hard to see what any other coach could have done differently. And Paul Cullen has resigned – presumably before he was pushed. And I think maybe he is the exception in what I feel to be a rather unfair way of dealing with coaches when the club is failing to achieve. In Warrington’s caese, although they have had their fair share of injuries, especially recently, they have a very strong team and they should really have done better this season. Capitulating to Castleford last Monday was definitely a low point, and it seems as if Cullen’s resignation was the only possible outcome. Lee Briers admits to being “gutted” in the Sun (30 May) that Cullen has gone, and maybe the players have to shoulder some of the blame, but perhaps also he was just not a good enough coach. Astonishingly, since I wrote the rest of this, Jon Sharpe has now been sacked at Huddersfield. That’s a quarter of the superleague coaches gone in a little over two weeks. Are there more to come?

How much can a team’s performance rely on the coach’s words of wisdom and coaching tips? Can they really have such influence – is it all mind games?

I suppose when things are going badly for a club, a new coach has the benefit of being able to start again without feeling the sword hanging over his head, and that must give him the ability to instil belief into the players without them getting the whiff of desperation that a coach at risk of losing his job must inevitably give off. But if players are still injured there is only a certain amount that a new broom can achieve, and what an intense, nerve-wracking job it must be. The reward is obviously in the achievement of the team, and there must be little to beat the feeling of seeing your team lift the Grand Final trophy, the Challenge Cup or even the League Leaders’ Shield. But sometimes it seems like a very small step from coach of the month to ex-coach.

On another note, having watched a miserable Bradford Bulls display yesterday which saw them crashing out of the Challenge Cup to Hull, I now withdraw unreservedly my defence of the Bulls in my last post. In this form and with this attitude they don’t deserve to be in the top six let alone get to the Grand Final. Jamie Langley says in the Telegraph and Argus today that the players blame themselves. But why don’t they do something about it? Maybe they need a new coach?

Defence of Bradford Bulls!

Just read Andy Wilson’s depressing analysis of Bradford Bulls on his blog, “The season so far, and Bulls in decline”.

I have to admit I was thinking a lot of the same things that morning while cycling along the canal at Apperley Bridge looking at the ground where the team sometimes practises.

But on reflection I feel he has been far too down-beat about the Bulls, there are lots of positives, just not at the moment. Any team would struggle to beat Leeds at the moment, but considering their current injury crisis I think Bradford made a monumental effort last weekend and came pretty close. Four tries being disallowed does not help, we were nearly there and I think we would have won if Deacon had been there to combine with Jeffies and if Tadulala had not been injured during the game.

Steve McNamara is beginning to build a good team after the loss of all those stars at the end of 2005, and although they will soon lose Hape, and of course lost Vainikolo last season, they have Burgess, Halley, Sykes, Deacon, Morrison, Jeffries and several others who are quality players and will help the team progress.

Now that the Harris business is over the Bulls can start to recover from that and build a better team with the money that Harris’s salary will save them. I feel that the Harris court case has cast a long shadow and has been a major factor in the lack of success for the last three years. If by some miracle the sporting village comes to fruition, that would be a major boost for the club and surely the crowds would increase. Perhaps now more money could be spent on advertising the club in the Bradford area so that more people are enticed in to watch the games.

I think it is inevitable that the fan base is always going to be much smaller than that of Leeds. Leeds is a much bigger and wealthier city; the Rhinos have a better ground, more facilities and are more likely to benefit from corporate hospitality packages.

I think Bradford just have to hang in there to get through their injury crisis, and if they can still stay in the top six, they have as good a chance as anybody in the playoffs. But having said that, things will have to change a lot before anyone looks likely to beat Leeds, and a Leeds St Helen’s final is by far the most likely outcome.

I’d be more depressed if I was a Warrington fan – all that money, great international players and very limited success – though I know they have had a lot of injuries too. And have just parted company with Paul Cullen. That has been a long time coming, he almost went last year, and I think that the Board have probably made the right decision, they need a new and dynamic coach to push the Wolves forward.

As of today, here are my predictions for top six at end of season:

Leeds

St Helens

Wigan

Catalans

Bradford

Warrington

But I hope I’m wrong and Bradford end up much higher than that!