It's more realistic concern than insane negativity. Marc Green and the club need to realise that supporter morale is at an all time low.

i wouldn't say all time low. When the club was moving between owners like a game of pass the parcel, that was probably a worse time than this.

As it stands, the club, despite what certain people on here who seem to think that having their user name as that of a previous director means any of the garbage they spew is automatically insider knowledge, is not in a bad way.



I don't believe that the crowds will be substantially down in the coming season on what they were this year, this is because the club is now down to the barebones of support.



The team is, bar a couple of players, the same one that made the MPG and of those players missing going into next year, well they spent a great deal of this year missing too and we didn't do too badly.



As for turning noses up at the new half back we have on trial before anyone here has even seen him play is stupidity of the highest order.

I aren't turning my nose up at him, just saying organizing scrum halls are often not appreciated. I will support the new scrum half just saying I think in our position we need a proven player at a minimum champ level, preferably with super league experience or potential. Scrum half must be one of the most important positions in the team as we saw last year and I don't think we are in a position to take a gamble

Perhaps not appreciated by some, but I would say those who understand the game a bit better realise that it's exactly what our team lacks. Addy did a good job of it last year, but a specialist at organising from the halves is exactly what we need. Whether Jacks is up to it or not, time will tell. I for one am willing to wait and see, as it's all fine and dandy saying we need a proven or top quality player, but you can only sign what's available.

Well I share the frustration that we haven't signed a halfback with a proven track record. It was clear that it's an area of weakness and I genuinely expected we had made plans and would address it for 2016. Instead it appears we have recruited two inexperienced players and Mullaney and Siejka have gone. Now I'm usually fairly optimistic but how can that be seen as an improvement right now?



Welham aside, it feels like we're very much building a solid Championship side rather than one trying to compete with SL clubs.

I’m not sure what purpose these posts are meant to have other than getting you through the night shift.



As far as I remember Green never said he’s going to put anything into the club – he said it’d be run as a business. As for him taking money out I think that’s a bit laughable. Have you seen the figures? I think he took over in order that he wouldn’t lose what he’d already loaned in the past. Trouble is I don’t see how the club will ever generate enough for him to see his money again. Nobody else bid as much as him to the administrator so the club is his and I can’t see a queue of other investors lining up. We are where we are. Having a go at him won’t change anything unless you know of a Ken Davy waiting in the wings which I doubt.



These are worrying times financially – as they have been for over 10 years.



I think we have a very slim to no chance of promotion this year and if we fail that’ll be it. If 2015 was **** or bust then 2016 really is.



After 2016 all bets are off.



In the meantime I’m going to enjoy what we have while we have it. There’s nothing else we can do as fans other than get behind the team.

I'd find it a whole lot easier to get behind what we've got if the club were a bit more upfront about what the plan is. If we are having to make savings at 1st team level due to financial constraints then tell us. Is it just me getting mixed messages?

I must be one of the few on here who is not exactly gutted that we have not signed Sammutt. Whilst he would have certainly been better than no scrum half at all, I think our need is for an organiser than an off the cuff player. My only concern is that Ferres in the T & A today says he will be trialled during the friendlies If it doesn't work out, the season is then upon us. I still think there is a half back to come at some point in the season.

Given the recent brush with HMRC and the late submission of accounts are just two things that show that we’re on the breadline. Ferres’s press releases may be a bit sobering but they’re quite clear on the situation we’re in. I don’t think it could be spelled out any more clearly.



Obviously constantly plugging that line isn’t going to shift any season tickets. They have to talk up the club and it’s not all doom and gloom despite what “Peter” says. I’d say you shouldn’t see it as mixed messages rather than as the club doing its best to market itself in the context of being short of cash IMO.



Without the income it needs there will have to be savings. Green said he’ll run the club as a business so if we don’t get the sponsors or season ticket sales we need expect cuts. It’s been clear that we need 5000 season tickets. So far we don’t have them which explains why we’re signing unknown Aussie amateurs rather than proven professionals.

While tone of forum is generally more downbeat these days its a result of a series of poor seasons and signings that have disappointed. Don't really include last year as a poor season as it was a big rebuilding job and we only failed at the final hurdle. A bit better luck in terms of injuries to the key players in last third could easily have seen us back in SL.



People keep saying we're signing players that are championship quality have to bear in mind we ARE a championship side with, until a few weeks ago, a Championship salary cap to match. our recruitment was done with this cap in mind. If we'd just gone out and signed SL level players we'd have had an 18 or 19 man squad which isnt enough.

As it is we have a squad where bulk of first 17 is lower SL quality. We've maybe got a few too many championship level players we could lose and replace with fewer but better quality players but its a case of striking a balance between quality and squad depth whilst having to deal with players that are maybe surplus but still under contract.

Also there's got to be some sort of pay parity between the players within the squad so we dont end up with a higher paid 'SL player' Camp and a lower paid 'champinship player' camp. Really dont know how leigh are managing that aspect with the big group of highly paid 'stars' they've brought in and suspect there maybe some discord in their camp at some point in season.



Would imagine our squad makeup would have looked fairly different if the cap change had been brought in earlier before we'd virtually finished our recruitment. As it is I suspect Leigh are virtually upto their new allowed cap whilst we still have a fair bit of space for recruitment later in season should some of new players not work out, as whilst we may be tight moneywise at this ,we should have more capacity to generate more income through the season from matchday revenues and merchandise due to our larger fanbase. Think squad as it stands could look totally different with one or two key signings.

Is the message that clear? We still seem to be talking about buying the ground back from the council and RFL, who is financing that? Green stated that the winding up petition was 'incorrectly lodged'. Some might take that to mean all is rosey and it was simply an error, though I think we can assume that isn't likely.



The 5000 members might well be what we need but it's a completely unrealistic amount of sales. We didn't sell that many when we were still in SL, so we have no chance in our current position. I get that we might aim higher knowing we probably won't hit 5k but I doubt we'll hit 3k as things stand.



Sadly I do agree that promotion looks very unlikely with our current squad. But a few less shirt fillers and one decent 7 and I'd feel a little more optimistic in a one off game. Will we have one last throw of the dice in June/July? Guess we'll have to wait and see..

Definitely not just you.



There seem to be a lot of smoke and mirrors at the moment, and it's hard not to wonder why sometimes, even if you think along the lines of "we don't need to know everything". Unfortunately the last few years have understandably made us all quite paranoid and whenever the club don't seem 100% up front, it's hard to not think something's up.



Stuff like the Mullaney situation. It was obviously known for weeks before he was off, so why take so long to announce it? It just screamed of "we don't want to hurt season ticket sales".

Things aren't perfect by any means, but the previous chap saying the morale of the fans is at an all time low? Well that's absolute tosh. When we first went into admin and periods thereafter I had a genuine lump in my throat and tear in my eye. I am peed off at our situation but we've been in darker places.

If our, 'organiser', scrum half can create holes for such as Lee Gaskell to stroll through then I'll be very happy. After all, that was a major part of Paul Deacon's game and he wasn't so shabby.



I've said many times that halves need to be judged as a combination and imo, an organiser is exactly what we need to complement Gasky in the halves.

I think club communication has been poor at times. I do wonder how much of that is down to a fractured relationship with the T&A. Ross has had a few run ins with Lowes and that needs to be smoothed over. The club obviously want to portray things positively as possible but you have to strike a balance. I agree about the Mullaney situation. Rumours abounded of him going for weeks before it was confirmed. Then again we don’t know all the facts of the situation, he may not have been 100% going until well after the first rumour. I agree though it’s better to get bad news out there than have it bubble away and fester as rumours.



As for the apparently wrongly lodged winding up order that sounded a bit hard to believe at the time. Still, that’s dealt with now to the satisfaction of HMRC so that can be parked – no sense in worrying about it anymore. The ground thing I think is more of an aspiration than a genuine plan that’s ongoing. The only way that will be resolved is with a substantial injection of money from a third party. The council won’t be selling anything in the current climate unless they can get top dollar. I wouldn’t interpret aspirations as a sign that we’ve got money to spend on that.



I think we just need to take what we’re told with a pinch of salt. We’ve been fed all sorts of bull**** over the past 10 years so a bit of healthy cynicism is a good idea. However there’s no need to go overboard like “Peter”. Like Pumps I agree we’ve been in far worse positions in the past. That’s not to say worse isn’t around the corner but right now we have the second best team on paper in the division (and possibly the best on the field). While promotion is unlikely due to the disparity in leagues and salary caps we’re in it and who knows what may happen in a one off game. I’m hopeful Lowes has learned lessons from last year.

I have noticed that there is a lot of 'buy this' and buy that' going on from Bradford at the moment on my news feed along with a new enticement that half of the spend goes towards something called Buy Bulls or something. eg if you spend £45.99 on a Bulls hoodie (£45.99 for a hoodie!!!!) £23 goes towards funding the team up to the new SC or something.



I read somewhere that the RFL set your maximum SC spend at £1.34M. Now this must be based on a budget for the year put forward by the club. This would suggest there are no problems wouldn't it.

The Financial penny is starting to drop, MG isn't going to spend what the Club hasn't got so apart from more or larger moneyed Sponsors it will be up to the Fans to commit to buying Season Tickets, there are too many using excuses not to, but not realising that is exacerbating the situation with regards to buying so called quality Players, as for "Peter" False Hood purporting to know the Clubs present finances, he has not said anything that is verifiable and second guessing the rest!

Don't know where you read 1.34M but it's not a figure I've seen reported by anyone.

I thought that was what yours was set at, or is that just a very similar amount?

That seems to have been the case since MG took over to be honest. Or at least certainly for the best part of a year. The website is full of news stories on how you can give more money to the club. The Twitter feed is too. And let's not forget "BullsApp" which I had to delete after a month or two as I was sick of it telling me all the ways I could spend more money rather than any actual news.



To be fair to the club, there isn't much in the way of news they can offer at the moment. We're at a traditionally low point when it comes to stories, so it's not surprising there isn't much else being trotted out. And if constantly telling people what they can spend their money on actually works and helps the club make money, who can blame them for doing it?



Personally, it puts me off even looking at the website or the Twitter feed, but I'm sure it must work to an extent or they wouldn't do it. As long as I'm in the minority, I'm not that fussed.

It was either in a LoveRugby League website article or in one of the RL papers this week. I noticed it because the figure was slightly higher than the one quoted for Leigh which was £1.31M. It was definitely in print somewhere this week as it also mentioned the BUY BULLS initiative.



So to all you affluent Bulls fans there is a Xmas Sale on and the new Premium Bulls range where it is stating half your spend goes towards the new initiative to fund the team. That is some markup on those goods if you are making a profit in excess of 50% on these goods which is what it actually suggests to me. If the markup isn't 50% then where are you finding the money for your supplier. Someone needs to start asking questions before it is too late.



edit: I have just re read the sales blurb and it seems a proverbial 50% goes towards the team based on the RFLs SC rule of '50% of relevant income'.

This is basically what we've been told. Under the new 'interpretation' of the cap rules, the cap for SL and Championship - and I assume Championship 1, is exactly the same and it's all based entirely on income. PG's statement, that 50% of shop sales [iqualifies[/i go to the team is simplistic but is just setting out what we can spend under the cap. Personally, I'm pretty sure there may well be other calls on our 'spending money', so whether we can actually spend that amount on the team, and still remain in business, might be another matter.



Incidentally, I'm surprised that some have only just noticed the higher end prices on club clothing. This is not new and has been the case for as long as I can remember, and certainly long before Marc Green became chairman. I think it's fair to say it applies to all other clubs too and most likely other sports - it certainly does in soccer. We know it's expensive, but we want to wear our clubs' colours and, ultimately the money goes to our club, so we pay it and smile......

Spot on. They've been expensive for as long as I can remember. But as you say, you grin and bear it a little more when you know the money is going towards the club you love, rather than into Mr. Debenhams' money chest. Are you being ripped off? Yeah, probably. But with the amount they sell compared to the amount big retail stores shift, they probably need a bigger markup to make it worthwhile.

It's almost like wondering why the corner shop charges 30p more for a loaf of bread than Tesco do.

Message to Marc Green, get some Bull Bread in £5 a loaf.....they'd pay it!



Merry Xmas all

You may joke, but I bet some people would!