Well, that was a tough one to watch, wasn't it? Our beloved Bulls, riding high on a streak of wins, faced off against a York team that hadn't tasted victory all season, and somehow, we managed to come out on the losing end. Fair play to York, they did the simple things right and won the game.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around what went wrong. We started like a house on fire in the opening 10 minutes and then went to sleep until the final 10 mins. We've seen the Bulls play some great rugby league lately, with moments of brilliance that had us all dreaming of a top 3 finish. But today, we looked utterly dreadful in attack.
One of the major issues I noticed was our lack of creativity in attack. Passes were predictable, runs were telegraphed, our kicking game was non-existent and we just couldn't seem to find a way through their defensive line. We then started throwing the ball around a bit and found some success but overall our attack was very poor. I felt towards the end of the game we also lost a lot of our go forward. Has it been discussed why Smith withdrew from the squad? We missed him badly today.
It's frustrating because we have the talent, we have the skill, but something just wasn't clicking. EOC talked about the side not becoming complacent. I felt that we went in a little undercooked today and thought we could just turn up, put in an average performance against a team who have been dreadful all year and still come away with the win.
Credit where it's due, though. York came out firing, despite their struggles this season. They played with heart and determination but I felt that they didn't capitalise on the amount of ball they had in our half. If we'd have given a decent side that much field position and possession we'd have been on the end of a 50 or 60 point battering. I also felt that they kicked us to death this afternoon. Taufua and McGowan both having bad days under the high ball.
As disappointing as this loss is, we can't dwell on it for too long. Every team faces setbacks, and it's how we respond to them that defines us. We move on to Widnes next week who also tasted defeat today. I hope we can bounce back and avenge the cup loss that we suffered earlier this season.
Funnily enough I saw an interview with Paul Newlove recently where he said that he too doesn't know how we stuffed that season up and it still bothers him. Dave Watson getting himself sent off versus Leigh didn't help but then without his last minute interception try at Oldham we'd have lost that one too. As Peter Fox said in every season you win games you don't expect to win and lose games you don't expect to lose.
