Crowd was roughly 8,000. Just under I think the official number was. The game was spectacular. In the middle of it I uttered 'f**k me but RL is an amazing sport'. And it is. When it's played between two sides that are pretty evenly matched it's just so f**king great.
Les Cats deserved the victory and played most of the footy but Bradford won fair and square, even though I thought the ref was a little unfair in his control of the ruck, giving Bradford a lot more leeway than Les Cats, who deserved a fair few penalties. The commentator, the incomparable Rodolphe Pires, even said 'il fait Hollywood!' when Henderson went over after a nothing 'high shot' and was given a crucial penalty in the 40th minute from which Deacon kicked two points. Bradford were direct and survived on quick ruck plays and clear surrender tackles, while some of Les Cats' play was breathtaking.
The first try was one of the best I've seen, with the ball travelling through eight or nine pairs of hands, from left to right, quick draw and pass to set up a last tackle ruck from which Les Cats scored off of Jones's kick.
Then Chan dropped it in his own 30 metres and Bradford scored.
Then McGuire produced the mother of all offloads, a spectacular round the corner effort at high speed that sent Greenshields away, setting up an attack close to the Bulls line from whihc which McGuire's beautiful, long cut out ball found Bosc in at the corner.
Then a superb Guisset break found Wilson, who found Gossard who then produced another superb offload to Wilson who made it into the corner. Three outrageously good RL tries.
A strong Vagana run then put Deacon over and Bradford got into the game more.
Les Cats had lots of chances but blew them all, one when Greenshields only had to pass to a two man overlap but instead tried to commit the last defender and off-load round the corner, only to drop it forward. That was the crucial play of the match.
Wicked, wicked match.
