Bradford Bulls grafting but in the dark in Super League race

But does anyone really have a clue what’s going on with the RFL and IMG’s great rugby league reset?

Confidence in the sport’s chiefs took a huge hit last weekend with the farcical friendly between England and France in Toulouse, played in front of essentially one man and his dog.

It was hidden away on a streaming platform and not televised (imagine that happening with a football or rugby union clash between these two) while it was played as a curtain-raiser for the Betfred Championship match between Toulouse and Featherstone (imagine Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham in an international at the Valley being hurried off the pitch for Charlton versus Blackburn).

Hardly any international fixtures are on the calendar, meaning last Saturday’s game felt like a somewhat pointless, random friendly.

And with some nations going months, if not years, between internationals, it is facilitating the gap between England and the rest of the world (except the pacific nations, Australia and New Zealand) growing wider and wider.

And with Castleford’s Sam Wood picking up a shoulder injury during the game that will rule him out for the rest of the year, Super League clubs are threatening not to release players for internationals in mid-season.

It was all a bit of a botch job, and there appear to be growing fears that term can be applied to clubs’ fight to improve their IMG grading, and potentially get into Super League.

On a personal level, last Saturday was great for Bradford native and Hull KR captain Elliot Minchella, as he made his England debut, but the friendly against France has received a lot of backlash from all quarters. (Image: PA.)

I’ve outlined my general thoughts on the process before, that trying to get clubs to improve on all facets of their operation, not just throwing obscene amounts of money at the first-team in a boom or bust scenario, cannot be a bad thing.

But listening to all the noise coming out of clubs in the Super League mix over the past few months, notably Wakefield, Leigh and Castleford, as well as taking in the 14th-placed Bulls’ comments at the fans’ forum on Monday night, it feels something akin to everyone running a 5,000m race blindfolded.

Clubs voted in IMG’s proposals, and the grading system, last spring, so it has been well over a year since they knew they had to improve on fandom, facilities, performance, finances and their work in the community.

Objectively, these five ‘IMG pillars’ are sensible, all things clubs should be looking to improve on.

But alarm bells should have been ringing last year, because clubs were not given any sort of indicative until October, meaning they spent six months putting plans together without fully knowing what they were aiming to do.

I said from the outset that Bulls’ outdated Odsal Stadium would hold them back badly, yet the club informed those in attendance at a fans’ forum last summer that they could expect a strong score on facilities.

Fast forward to the autumn, and my original pessimistic outlook proved spot on, as Bradford’s score for that pillar was less than one point out of the maximum three, essentially the main factor in costing them a provisional top-12 spot.

Odsal Stadium is holding the Bradford Bulls back, regardless of what the players do on the field. (Image: Tom Pearson.)

That raises the question of why Bradford were so far apart on what they believed their facilities would score compared to how the RFL and IMG judged it?

To Bulls’ credit, they took that horror score on board and are improving how they can.

They are building a pavilion bar behind the main stand, looking to extend the broadcast gantry, in talks to purchase a giant LED screen and most importantly, attempting to secure the lease for the ground to give them more control over what can be done at Odsal.

But as Bulls’ general manager Tracey Erby said on Monday night, while the club are confident on improving their score from October 2023’s 12.02, they have no idea how others are doing in that regard.

Since last autumn, it appears clubs have a greater grasp of what needs to be done to improve their grading, but again we go back to the blindfolded analogy.

Of course, as Bulls CEO Jason Hirst rightly pointed out on Monday, whether these improvements are enough to get the club into Super League for 2025, they at the very least show an ambition to improve the whole operation at Odsal.

And having reported on Bulls for six years now, particularly closely in the last four, I can say with confidence that right now is the most positive I have felt about the club and the people working within it.

But while Hirst has confirmed that Bradford are financially sound, they are not swimming in cash, so these are massive investments and undertakings to improve within the five pillars framework.

Yet what if Wakefield and Castleford, who have both made significant stadium upgrades over the last year, completely blow them out of the water?

On top of that, the latter get extra points for wins in Super League than Bulls do in the Championship, while the former have already claimed the 1895 Cup and will surely top the second tier and triumph in the Grand Final.

Castleford are improving all the time, evidenced by this extremely narrow defeat to reigning Super League champions Wigan a few weeks ago, and their outstanding victory at St Helens last night will help boost their IMG score nicely.  (Image: PA.)

Bulls fans could be forgiven for thinking, is it all really worth it?

What if, after 18 months of hard work, the club find out on October 23, 2024 that they’re even further away from Super League than they were a year prior?

And when that D-Day arrives, don’t expect every club and its fans to take the results lying down…