I suspect the dynamic may have changed completely. Sounds like we now do most of the training on an evening with a big chunk of the full time players time been spent on community work. This would leave tong under-utilised during the day.

I have a theory regarding the duel reg...



As the season progresses Toronto will likely have players who are nowhere near selection, but are being dragged half way around the world with the team regardless. Maybe the plan is for such players, especially if England based, to be dual reg’d to Bradford whilst rest of the team are in Toronto. Means they can keep fit and play in either the first or reserve team, but don’t have to be away from families unnecessarily.

Don't Toronto have the majority of their away games in the first half of the season while their stadium is redeveloped? So think this could only work in the first part of the season. No lose situation really unlike last year with Widnes where we were just desperate for players.

We really should be falling in behind our owners now surely. Tribunal over with no come back; good squad,improved greatly today;no penalty points,starting on zero;excellent coach,better than virtually anyone expected;reserve team to keep all fit;new home and away shirts ready before season starts;dual Reg making potentially more players available; no debts (?).

It’s almost as if they are very experienced rugby league people doing their best for us isn’t it. Come on you Bulls,give them your full support.

I’m pretty much with you Thommo with some reservations. Chalmers is slowly getting us going in the right direction and he deserves great credit for landing Kear. I hear we’re approaching 3k season tickets sold so he’s confounded the critics like me that said he’d never manage it.



Before my cup runeth over I do think we need to see how the dual reg pans out before we judge it a success. The last effort with Widnes wasn’t good. Hopefully lessons have been learned, we shall see. The launch of a reserve side is a good thing.



Having shirts available before the season is a bit of a bare minimum anyone would expect so hardly something to go mad about. We don’t know what, if anything, the tribunal cost or what state our accounts are in (anyone know when they’ll be filed?). I suspect we’re living on a shoestring and I hope we’re not running up any debt and the move to the hybrid part time model should save a lot.



I’d say we’re coming along very nicely and I’ve got my season ticket. The next move I’d like to see is an end to the ridiculously badly written press and social media releases. If he does that I’ll be even happier.

There needs to be an end to the bullsh** too for me. The away shirt lies last year were what set me off on a large downward spiral. The latest stuff before the Sheffield game where they came up with blatantly incorrect reasons for why they weren't opening turnstiles (the stuff about Rooley Lane especially, which hasn't been closed in years). Just say the turnstiles/scanners aren't working, we're gonna have to do it manually. Honesty goes a long way. And then of course there's the pricing policy, but I've gone into that enough times without having to repeat myself again.



There's plenty of positives showing up in the last couple of months. They just need to make sure they stop the negatives taking the shine off them. The owners have some way to go before I'll be "falling in behind" them, but it's good to see a lot of people now are doing.

I think many of us have our bullsh** radar highly tuned now after so many chancers have been in charge over the years. So much so that people are less forgiving than they used to be and come out more vociferously when things aren’t right. Perhaps the cobblers about turnstiles is a reaction to that? Maybe they were afraid of the reaction for coming out with an honest “we’re saving some money by not paying turnstile operators by getting you all to buy in advance and we can test some of the technology but it’s not working fully yet” .



I’m a forgiving sort so will give them the benefit of the doubt. I’ve not had the rationale explained to me. Assuming there is one.



I’m less forgiving of the badly written press releases. It’s easy to fix. Get it done!

I'm wholly with Tackler T on this. When you compare the position we are in today with 12 months ago the position is so so much better. Andrew Chalmers must take a lot of credit for this and we should repay him by getting fully behind the club. I know there are still some issues - the main one perhaps communication but generally things are on the up. Like many I am not convinced about dual Reg but John Kear seems enthused by it and that's good enough for me.

I'm fully behind JK and the team but, to be honest mate, if and when club employees start, 'spinning against the management', I'll be ready to start worrying - again!

Whilst you're correct, I've always had a pretty good radar, I just usually stop the response from highlighting such detections











Well I think I'm due to be blocked on Twitter again soon for the same frustrations.... I try to keep quiet, I really do. They just make it so bloody difficult!





Anyway, what position does the new signing article IMPLY that Craig McNally plays?

I was intrigued by yesterday's 'More tomorrow...' on how the 'partnership' will work.



Just looked at the website and there's not much there. If we take COP to be 1700 they have an hour and 20 mins. These are the things for me that can set 'New Bulls' aside from the 'Old Bulls'hit. They need to clarify it today?

The press releases are constantly poor, some like the one the other week calling the academy notorious I complained to the club about (no response). But others I'm less bothered about, like the one this afternoon in the article about the three new academy lads;



"...we decided it was time to give him an opportunity at the Bulls, where he has grabbed and impressed the Academy coaching staff"



So its not what you know or who you know, its how you grab them...just ask Trump.

There's certainly no clue about his squad number.

I'm toying with the idea of going to the friendly on Friday, this will be my first home match since I think Sheffield. So yes, I think a few hearts and minds are being won over but I can't commit to a season ticket. Odsal isn't exactly toddler friendly, particularly in Feb/March so it doesn't work for me personally on such a regular basis.



I hope it isn't going to be chaos at the turnstiles to get in, do I need to pre buy if I don't want to be messing about queuing at the office? And if so, can I literally just do it online an hour or so before kick off?

I ordered for Sheffield on line, got an email with ticket attached, printed it off and walked straight in, stopping for about 10 seconds whilst they scanned it. No problems

I pre bought and printed it off to save hassle. Which according those that bought on the day was by far the better option.

I recently bought a ticket and came away with a physical ticket from the office, I then received an e-receipt. with the a ticket to print out at home. I really am not too sure about this system, to be honest.

I'm not sure the club know what they're doing to be honest but buying and printing out beforehand seems to be the safest way to ensure hassle free entry.



However it really does turn off those fans that think they might turn up on a whim or who can't say in advance if they know they can make it. Are they all going to join the same queue like at the Sheffield game? Some did and got fed up and went home. And this is before you get onto the issue with away supporters.



It needs to be clearly marked where tickets can be bought on the day of the match and not sold like everything else from overworked shop staff.



This is really basic organisation but why not just have a turnstile open?

My problem, or more accurately the club's problem, is the system being open to abuse.



If they do have some way of making all these barcodes unique and which can be recognised by the scanners AND then recognised and refused if used again, then fine, but using hand held phones to check tickets doesn't sound remotely like that sort of secure system to me. It would surely need a direct link to some central computer to make it work.

On the topic of what will come of this re the link up with Toronto, Paul Rowley has a view on what might come of this as far as Toronto is concerned;



[urlhttps://www.propersport.uk/toronto-wolfpack-paul-rowley-at-the-launch-of-the-new-season[/url



Its all about Toronto obviously but hes asked about the duel reg setup, and firstly he jokes about borrowing from us as his squad is "skinny" now - dnot think he's really serious about that to be fair. But the other point he makes is about young North American players that aren't ready for his 1st team and they cant loan to other clubs apparently (no idea why duel reg makes a difference to a loan here but clearly it must) so he talks about getting players over to Bradford to learn and play in our system and then there is a pathway for these young North American players through our academy - reserves - 1st team - Toronto 1st team. The two players he names as examples are Quinn Ngawati and Ryan Burroughs, so I expect these guys to be over in our reserves at some point this season.



If this is how we're using the dual reg I think it could be a good use of the system-[iif[/i as a sport we are serious about developing the game in North America, which will only happen if we develop young North American players rather than relying on ex Leigh and ex nrl players. The young Canadian players get a higher level of none 1st team RL and should develop better than watching in the stands in Toronto, we get numbers to fill out the reserve squad without extra wage payments, Toronto can look to recruit young players knowing they have somewhere to play them for them to develop, we get first look at any potential recruits from this system who might not get into the Toronto 1st team for whatever reason. My only caveat would be I wouldn't want to hinder the development of our own youngsters by blocking up academy/reserve places with too many from Toronto, but a few a season could work well for all parties.

I suspect we are a long way off having enough players to field a reserve team without decimating the 19s, so really can't see there being an issue there.

Yeah, I took it to mean putting young Canadian players through our academy. Even if they were to set up their own, they would have no-one to play against, which would be a big detriment. Though money seems to be no problem for Toronto and I suspect they could easily afford to import a few youth coaches but setting up a league in order to play some competitive matches over there might be beyond even their resources.



Not sure how they'd do it though. I'm guessing the young people would have to be resident over here and presumably on a 'living contract' and I'm not sure how that would play out if we're talking about under 18s who would presumably need some kind of general supervision - not that I can see any real problem with sticking a group of 16 to 18 year-olds in a house on their own.....

Couldn't they just do it like the first team do? Come over to play a block of games? I know that their first team are mainly based here and any Academy etc would be over there but they could come over, play a block of Academy games in the same time Toronto do theirs. Wouldn't affect education if it's done in the summer and also gives the Toronto team a base to build from.

I guess they could, it would just mean the academy leagues adapting to it. It would definitely be an expense to sent the lads over there, but I assume Toronto would pay for it and the lads would love it, for sure.

I'm sure that could be do able. I mean if the Championship can adapt to it then surely the Academy league could. Aye that's the only issue, sending our academies there. If Toronto's owners would pay for it, it would make sense, as they are the ones benefiting by having more games over there and a chance to pick the brains of the British academies about setting up etc.