Anyone considered the 2 teams/squads that BN had managed to nurture/form whilst coaching?

For plenty of arguments sake, lets examine the Bulldozing Bradford team/squad that BN managed to win silverware with and draw comparisons to the shower of shite we are watching at the moment:

1. Withers, with Reardon in reserve - we dont have a full back better than Withers and certainly don't have a reserve FB as good as Reardon in his prime in 03/04

2/5. Vaikona & Vainikolo - nowt in comparison

3/4. Hape/Gilmour with Paul Johnson as reserve - see above

6/7. Robbie Paul/Leon Pryce/Deacon with Karl Pratt in reserve - ok we've got Tommy but only as good as any 1 of theirs and certainly not better

8/10 Fielden (in his prime)/Vagana/Paul Anderson/Lee Radford/Brian McDermott - I'm at a loss to present a pecking order of our current 4 props but am certain that Fielden in 2009 or any of the other 3 we have to endure would struggle to get into that Bulls squad.

9. Lowes versus Piggy/MM/Flanagan - another inferiority

11/12. Peacock/Langley/Gartner - probably as close as talented as we are going to get but still a difficult argument to justify that Hock/Tomkins/Hansen are anything like

13. Logan Swann/Mike Forshaw - we've got Lockers, do I need to spell who's better out?

Still, we'll get the old cliches trotted out about "club in transition", "the season doesnt end in March", "we'll take a good look at ourselves and wont make the same mistakes again", "yadda yadda".

To think, I publicly slated (in the WEP) John Dorahy when he made a dumb decision of playing a league game over in Cas the day after 10 Wigan players had respresented GB v NZ and we had to travel over and see the team of reserves get battered. The man was a demi-god when compared to the man that brought this lot together.

2003 Bulls squad was the best squad to play in Super League

Saints may have something to say about that, they won everything 2 years ago, player awards and all, even BBC team of the year.

Totally agree with that, best by far.

Yet more evidence of the decline in standards in SL.

That Bulls squad is far stronger than the current Leeds and Stains teams.

2006 Saints side.

FB - Wellens - better than Withers and Reardon.
Wing - Gardner and Meli - Bulls wingers
Centres - Lyon and Talau - comfortably
Halves - Pryce and Long - again better
Props - Cayless, Anderson, Graham, Fa'asavalu - only Fielden at his peak is comparable
Hookers - Cunningham and Roby - better
Back row - Gilmour, Hooper, Wilkin, Bennett - Peacock is the best

Add to that the quality of rugby played by Saints that year and you're looking at the best team that's graced this competition since its inception. Defensively we were a tier above the next best and lost just four games all season by a grand total of 10 points (3 points, 1 point, 2 points and four points) which is incredibly impressive.

Both great sides though.