No half backs, 3 props and our make shift half suffering a broken nose and having to leave the field vs a good, albeit underperforming Toulouse side who most tip to finish top 3. What did people really expect?

It was a disappointing display of course but when we don’t have a recognised kicker it’s hard to put in the attacking kicks people want. With green, bustin, lilley and hopefully a few more back next week it will be different (or it should be!)

We weren’t great and that’s true.

But with so many halfbacks out, so many props out, and then our best player Minchella off for half the game, seriously, what do people expect?

Toulouse are a mean side at this level and while it was disappointing, the end result was what I expected. You can’t play these teams with no halves or props and that’s a fact.

The only thing that surprised me this week was the number of people in our tipping forum going for a Bulls victory

To be fair I quite enjoyed the game today - I thought our starting forwards were really good. Their defence was awesome, they were knocking Toulouse all over the park and they had a lot of defending to do. It was good to get Mikey Wood back at thirteen. The score could have been a lot more! The problem we have is our decision making by key players. Wildie is excellent and I quite liked him at half back, we need new hookers though! Hallas is too slow When the defensive line speed was good like today it really shows - poor forwards - they don’t stand a chance! Also, dont know why Hallas played the full game when we had rested subs at the ready - although how he manages to do 80 mins is unbelievable! Hope minchella is ok?

Before the season I had this game pencilled in as a defeat. When I heard we had no half backs and two injured props and a suspended prop I felt like not going to the match.

I was pleased that I did. I thought we put in an extremely hard working, committed performance. Aside from the first 15 mins or so I thought we kept Toulouse penned back, put in a lot of strong hits and tackles and made a good fist of it.

Attack wise I think we were always going to struggle, even more so when we lost Minchella but Wildie put in some good kicks that enabled us to have Toulouse start a lot of their sets in their own 20.

In the end a couple of dodgy moments cost us and whilst we never particularly looked like scoring, I would definitely blame that on the lack of personnel.

I enjoyed the game a lot more than I thought I would. We kept a team I expect to be at the top of the table to just 2 trys and welcomed back a couple of players from injury in Gibson and Bustin. Fingers crossed we get Chisholm, Keyes and Hitchcox back for Batley along with Green and Lilley from suspension.

I'm not feeling the woe just yet because the injuries we have, and the specific positions they are in, means we were always going to lose this one in my opinion. Like someone else said I was very surprised how many tipped a bulls win. Not sure where that optimism stemmed from.

If we still look adrift and clueless when we are playing with settled halfbacks and a strong, fit pack, then I will start to worry.

I get people comments regarding injuries etc the props argument I don't buy as we had Margrin and Karsniqi sat out. Yes Krasniqis been rubbish and Margrin wasn't great against Sheffield but Kear brought them in. I would have preferred Margrin to come on instead of Oakes. Oakes is the better player but yesterday's conditions were obviously a stick it up your jumper and run hard type of game. Toulouse only beat Swinton by 2 points last week and haven't exactly started the season well.

Frustrating thing for me is while we do have players to come back, it won't make a jot of difference if we continue banging the ball dead to give a 7 tackle set, unable to complete a set and our FB being out of position and not communicating with his wingers. We're making the same errors every week.

The 14 point margin was just short of the 16 point margin I expected. With our halfbacks out and playing in terrible conditions it was never going to be easy. There was a lot of effort but we never came close to scoring and very rarely applied any concerted pressure.



I agree with this. We do have a bad habit of not taking our opportunities or maintaining pressure on the opposition. Our gameplans are very conservative too which means we're easy to defend against.

Muddy field, tremendous kicking game; dumb penalties and hand overs from us meant Toulouse had it sewn up in the first 15 mins. It's not all the fault of the FB but you have to ask about his confidence. On of the clearances he put boot to ball on, the ball was already out of play and as Eddie would say 'No-one in cooee'.

No doubt we have the skill, and pleasingly the desire (the show ponies of 2015 would have called it a day at 60 mins and leaked like a sieve) but gobbing off at the ref is beyond schoolboy and even more criminal when it's in their 20 and we concede on the set we handed them.

Wildie at 7 though.... there's a thought. If we had Theresa May's money tree I'd be in the hunt for an experienced FB and another hooker.

Indeed.
I had us down to probably lose this one long before the injuries/suspension so I'm far from surprised. For sure, we could/should have cut out some/most of the errors and definitely all the gobbing off but I still wasn't disappointed. Well only about the nil, I certainly didn't expect that, but not about the display as we were always on a loser with neither halves nor our best tactical kickers in the line up.

On the plus side I thought the effort shown by the lads was exemplary. We never gave up and many sides would have collapsed totally in the last quarter, so they get a big round of applause from me for that.