We've not been hammered once this year. Could we get zero points, quite possibly. There would be no shame in that.

Toronto - a free hit. No one will expect us to win. Toronto aren't unbeatable (Mcdermott looks like he's pacing them to come good in the play-offs)

Leeds - again a free hit. Hopefully not a hammering but losing to Leeds doesn't really matter. We've won that fact we've been drawn against them.

Halifax - we always seem to rise at Blackpool. Fax always do as well so it should be a cracker. No doubting they'll be bang up for it after us beating them at their place and Murrell returning will make it an even tougher task. But all doesn't seem well there. We're just as capable beating them as they are us.

Fev - this will be difficult. They'll be desperate to get us on their own patch after being unlucky twice against us.

If we lose all 4 it's not the end of the world as they're tough fixtures. Win though and we put a bit of daylight between ourselves and the chasing pack.

Teams in this league will all go through losing stages.

Spot on is that.

This is a tough division and there are no real 'easybeats'. Losing to anyone is no reason to be dejected, indeed it is to be expected due the nature of the competition, we'll win more than we lose, that's as good as most level-headed fans really expected this season and it'll do me fine.

I can understand the trepidation looking at those fixtures after the way we played Barrow but I think you have to take into account the Bank Holiday effect. Yesterday’s game was never going to be a festival of champagne rugby. We are capable of far better than that and have showed that in the comebacks against Fax and Fev. One thing we have learned over the past 5-6 weeks is just how resilient this side is. They remain composed whereas in the past we might have lost our heads. We are a difficult side to beat, all the evidence shows that.

The challenge for Kear and the players is to start improving our attacking play. While we are getting the wins we are doing it in spite of our style rather than because of it. I feel the side can make life much easier for itself if we started to have a bit more of a plan for the 5th tackle and improved the execution of it. Our kicking game and attacking structures could improve 100%. I’m sure Kear can see that.

I’m not expecting a win in any of our upcoming games (apart from Rochdale) but we have the ability to win them all (except the Leeds Cup game). Considering we’re without a few very good players we’re in a good place considering we’re a promoted team.

Both Toronto and Leeds will murder us around the ruck. Dwyer and Ackers will have a field day and everything else will come off the back of this.
Both Featherstone and Halifax should have seen their leads out. We got out of jail twice there imo.

But they didn’t, and that’s mainly down to us being better than them when it counted, no?

As for Ackers and Dwyer you’re 100% right. I expect the same. But then again we’re not yet a team pushing for promotion or competing in SL so I’m not seeing this as a reason to be upset. I think we can give Toronto more of a game than we did in pre-season, even with our misfiring attack.

As for Leeds, I fully expect them to win by at least 30. But that would be no disgrace.

Looking in league Express at the Try, Goal and point scoring charts. I don't remember the last time where not a single Bradford player appeared in any of them. Some people suggest this is exactly the sort of conservative rugby that JK wants but I'm not buying it. We have more points in us, irrespective of the onus he puts on defence.

I agree. Our attacking play is as poor as I can remember but our defence, resilience under pressure and spirit is the best it’s been in many years too. It’s that which is proving the difference in close games.

If we can improve the attack just a bit we can certainly get a top 5 spot.

We rarely seem to have any runners when a ball carrier runs down the line and, though I've already stated my delight at the way Ethan Ryan is taking to fullback, it does do away with our most potent fall-back attacking ploy - when all else fails, which is the new normal, then kick it high out to Ethan's wing.

Why, when someone makes a line break do we never seem to have any runners? Why do so many of our players seem to stop, like rabbits in a headlight, when the ball is passed to them? I'm assuming we have proper attacking moves worked out at training which we could execute?

The annoying thing is I'm happy at the position we're at - we're at the top (ish) end of where I expected us to be and I fully understand that we've had to make quite a few disruptive positional changes for this and that reason and that it's bound to impact on cohesiveness. So why, oh why, do I feel so flat when watching us with ball in hand sometimes?

I'm going to take a more conservative view.... we're in the top 5 which means it's almost unthinkable that we'll be relegated. My fear was that we'd implode, head back down and that would be the end of the Bulls. As it stands we haven't. Are we setting the world alight and pulling up trees? No. Do we need to? No.

The added bonus to all this is there is a pride in the shirt I haven't seen in years and JK seems to have finally banished the 'We're Bradford therefore we should win with minimum effort simple because of our reputation!'

Long may this dull, but acceptable, RL reign!!!

(and I've not heard the phrase 'cutting cloth' in 18 months - though with 15 mins to go and barrow wanging it about I was 'touching cloth')