Beware of the Bull

On my farm, the bull is king of the yard…
The bull, the bull is the biggest of all
He is the boss, he is, because he’s big and we are small
But the bigger the bull, bigger the bull, bigger the balls
The bigger the bull, the bigger and quicker and thicker the bullshite falls

It’s been twenty years since the Bulls were kings of the yard. It’s been ten since they were even in it. But the last time they won the Super League, in 2005, Brian Noble built a team of absolute bulls. Lesley Vainikolo, Joe Vagana, Jamie Peacock, Brad Meyers, Lee Radford, Stu Fielden. Nobby obviously wasn’t confident enough in this, and decided he needed to bring Adrian Morley home mid-season from the Sydney Roosters for the run-in. 

A fair bit has changed at Bradford since then; but there’s more that has stayed the same. After a year away, they ended up at the same ground. Same colours. Same badge. They’ve gone full circle and re-hired the same coach too. 

I decided to walk to Bradford on December 23rd for what I thought were entirely lol-bored reasons. Maybe it’s just me, but Merry Football Dartsmas wasn’t scratching my itch. I needed to watch 26 part-time blokes running at each other. I started in LS6, venturing through Headingley, Kirkstall, Bramley, Swinnow and Pudsey before reaching a BD post code. Up a steep, sloping path to Tyersal, the change in postcodes greeted me with dead rats and incessant dog shit. City of Culture, eh? 

Bradford’s always fascinated me. It’s a dump, aye? But how can a city that has Addingham, Bingley and Ilkley be a complete dump? How can the city that brought us David Hockney, Kimberley Walsh and Gareth Gates be a cultural wasteland? My initial thoughts on that path up Tyersal seemed to confirm the hive-mind mentality. I was soon, and happily, proved wrong and greeted on the horizon by The Grand — Yorkshire’s leading provider of premium wedding services. A Mar-a-Lago resort on Dick Lane. A beacon of beige and white opulence. I checked my phone to make sure that the piss-scented subway was indeed the right way to be going, and saw Google prompting me that vegan cakes and tailored outfits were close by. Before long, I’d made it to Odsal top. I nipped into The Top House and got a pint of Landlord for £3.20. City of Culture? Bratfud wrote t’bloody book on culture.

I crossed the road and went into the ground with about thirty minutes to kick-off. Greeted with red and white tape trying its best to hold onto the rails as it fought against the ever-present Odsal gale, I wasn’t allowed to stand where I wanted. Not that I knew where I wanted to stand. The tape guided us to the seated stand. There’s only two stands at Odsal with seating — this one and the Southbank — both relics of years of stagnation on and off the pitch. The stands are held back from the pitch by red dirt, puddles and discarded tractor tires. A BTEC sci-fi film set. 

It’s probably harsh of me to call the stands a relic of stagnation. New stands aren’t cheap, and until recently, new stands and a new flat-pack stadium didn’t guarantee success in British Rugby League. Bradford have done all they can to embrace the new IMG era. Their social media output is probably as good as most Super League teams, although it’s telling when being able to use hashtags properly puts them up to those standards. They’re also on the ball with those four-second videos that you have to watch ten times to read all the info. It all counts. They’ve extended their media gantry to meet new IMG criteria. I’m not sure if it’s completed yet or not, but it looks like summat Jerry the Saint and Young Kenny have thrown together before the fun day opens. Perhaps it’s just the thought that counts.

The Bradford fans were seemingly ravenous for some rugby. They were loud before the game kicked off. It must have been quite an exciting off-season for them; they weren’t a million miles off last season, and they’ve been able to keep the majority of their squad together, and added a bit of Super League experience to it. They retained the services of Franklin Pele and Jayden Okunbor, who they signed from Hull FC midway through last year, and were able to keep Aussie Zac Fulton on the books after a bit of a struggle. They’ve brought Waqa Blake, James Meadows and James Donaldson in from Super League, and picked off some of their Championship rivals for the likes of Ireland internationals Joe Keyes and Ronan Michael. 

The opponents, Keighley, are a strange one. They sacked their coach when they were at the top of League One last season, then ended up missing out on promotion. I couldn’t tell if their team will be challenging at the top of League One again this year, so pre-game expectations were that Bradford would lift the Joe Phillips Memorial Trophy after the game. 

The game started exactly how you’d expect a Bradford and Keighley friendly in the middle of December to start. It wasn’t great, the wind and cold not making it enjoyable for neither the players nor crowd. Keighley’s start to the afternoon was made worse when they managed to get someone sent to the bin. Waqa Blake scored his first try for the Bulls shortly after, and I assume he’ll score a few this year. Only a couple of sets later, Bulls prop Ronan Michael broke up the middle from about forty metres out (probably twenty on a normal pitch) before he dropped his lollies with the try line begging. A big lad breaking through and stepping a full-back is probably worthy of a try whether or not they ground the ball, but the referee wasn’t having any of it. Where’s yer Christmas spirit, ref? 

The referee was also having none of George Flanagan’s antics. Flanagan left the Bulls halfway through last year to join Keighley. I assume the fans were living up to the spirit of Christmas and booing him as some kind of panto villain who they would lovingly applaud at the end, but I didn’t stay long enough to find out. The Bulls fans wanted to give it to Flanagan whenever they could. He didn’t help himself by gesticulating about refereeing decisions and giving away stupid penalties (like any good shithouse hooker should, mind). 

The Bulls extended their lead with a try from Ebon Scurr, an academy product who has become a mainstay of their team. Even in their years away, Bradford have been able to produce decent youngsters. George Rayner looked like the next cab off the rank judging by his decent performance at full-back.

The best try of the game came early in the second half. In their own half, Bradford worked the ball down the short side with former London players James Meadows and Emmanuel Waine combining to set Jorge Taufua free down the touchline, before his pass back inside let Waine run away to score. Brian Noble seems to have gone back to his tried and tested formula of signing the biggest players he can. Though Waine may not be the tallest, he’s wide. And he’s got a bit of toe about him. The combination of Waine, Taufua and Okunbor will take some stopping at Championship level. 

Any chance of a proper game had fizzled out by now. Bradford had already won the game and beasted the Keighley middles. Both teams took turns to give fringe players minutes and I was getting far too cold to be sat about in the dark watching it. I made my way from my seat with about ten minutes to go. As I walked out, Bradford went over again. The Bulls’ Twitter feed reliably informed me that Alfie Leake, another academy product, scored the try.

I think the Bulls will have a few displays as dominant as this one in the coming season. The Championship has no runaway favourite this year, like they had with Wakefield and Leigh previously, and it seems like a decent opportunity for their owners and benefactors to push all their chips in. Brian Noble should know what it takes to get a team up to the Super League. Waqa Blake should eat up metres and score tries for fun. The Bulls’ pack should dominate every other in the competition. If it was to be decided on the pitch, Bradford Bulls should be back in the Super League soon. But who knows? Maybe Barrow get retweeted by Piers Morgan or summat and end up getting in. Who cares? I'll still watch it. ⬧