Bradford Bulls embracing tricky trip to Featherstone Rovers

Having already taken on promotion favourites Wakefield Trinity on the road and Halifax Panthers at home, Bradford travel to the Millennium Stadium this weekend ahead of welcoming French side Toulouse Olympique to West Yorkshire the week after.

Despite their challenging start, head coach Eamon O’Carroll admitted that he isn’t reading too much into it.

He said: “You could view it like that – that we are getting some extremely tough games out the way early – but other teams are in the same situation as us. Not everyone will be up to top gear just yet as it’s early doors in the season.

“I’ve looked through the fixtures this time around and I can’t see a period where you can drop your guard; you must be on it every single week regardless of who you’re playing and where you’re playing. That’s credit to the competition and to the rest of the clubs for recruiting well to make this league so competitive.”

O’Carroll added: “We can look at it and think that we’ve got one of the toughest starts, if not the toughest, but we’re embracing that and we are looking forward to the challenge ahead.”

Bulls have one victory on the board following their first two league fixtures (Image: Tom Pearson)

Heading into the weekend’s showdown at Featherstone, despite a lot of change taking place in the off-season at the club, O’Carroll believes that Rovers remain a competitive force within the division once again.

So far, they’ve won one and lost one, with their 20-12 defeat coming against Wakefield at home on Good Friday.

Bradford’s boss said: “I’ve always kept the same attitude on Featherstone despite a number of changes in the off-season. They’ve got a lot of quality; they’ve been through a fair bit themselves, obviously, but they seem like they are coming through the other side.

“I think they’ve recruited well and although they lost a few players, they did manage to retain a lot of quality as well. So, I still see them being a real force within the division and I think the challenge for us is to go one better, but it’s going to be a really tough game for us.”

Reflecting on his first Betfred Championship victory with the Bulls at home to Halifax Panthers on Good Friday, O’Carroll said: “I’m very happy because I thought it was a really strong performance from the group and that we stuck to a game plan, which we were rewarded for in the end.

“I can happily say that it’s the first time that we’ve been able to achieve that for the full 80 minutes of a match this season.

“Halifax have a lot of quality, but the way we dealt with their periods of pressure on our defensive line was really pleasing. So, overall, we were very happy but it’s clear that we’ve got to improve in some areas of our performance moving forward.”

Following Bradford’s Derby Day victory over Halifax, George Flanagan posted a group photo of the team enjoying a celebratory meal, and O’Carroll expressed his delight with the players for doing this.

He said: “Absolutely, this is something that I try to encourage (team bonding sessions) and if anything, I’d want them to do it more.

“I feel it’s really important for the lads to do stuff like this, especially with the limited time we have together because of the players’ day to day jobs.

“I’m a big believer in that how connected you are as a group will transfer on to the field. One of the things that I got told when I first came here was that this group have a good connection, and I want to make sure that I’m driving that forward as much as possible.

“So, in all honesty, I think we need to do more (team bonding) and I’m putting it on the players to do that when they can and are available. They’ve got to get the balance right between work life, rugby and spending time with their families. It’s complexed, but I was really happy to see that the majority of them attended the meal after the win against Halifax.”

The Bradford squad enjoy time together after their victory over Halifax on Good Friday (Image: X (formerly known as Twitter))

On injury news, O’Carroll said: “We lost Michael Lawrence before the Halifax game, but we are not sure how long he’ll be out for. He’s seeing a specialist this week to get another opinion on him, but he’s the only the one to come out of that game scathed.”