JIM LENIHAN lamented an “unconscious bias” by the match officials against Huddersfield Giants following a 30-14 defeat against Bradford Bulls.

Huddersfield slumped to an eleventh straight Super League loss against Bradford, keeping the Giants six points adrift at the bottom of the pile.

Lenihan was left seething at the treatment his side received from referee Matty Lynn and video referee Chris Kendall, particularly at the Connor Wrench no try call, with Sam Hewitt punished for an obstruction in the build-up.

“If it wasn’t for bad luck, we’d have no luck at all,” a frustrated Lenihan said.

“I’m sure that Wrenchy’s try is a try. He runs into the inside shoulder of the defender, it’s a try every day of the week, everyone knows it other than the people refereeing the game.

“At the moment, if we’re doing anything half-well, it gets undone. If we’re trying too hard, it undoes us. We have to win a game-and-a-half or nearly two games to get it to a situation where we win.

“It feels like we’re copping a lot of tough calls. It’s an unconscious bias because we’re not supposed to be scoring points here.

“We cannot catch a break at Huddersfield because we’re not supposed to win.”

For Bradford, the hard-fought win stretches their gap over Huddersfield to eight points and secures a first victory on the road since their Super League return.

Bulls boss Kurt Haggerty said: “I knew it wouldn’t look pretty tonight, but we just had to find a way to win, which we did.

“I don’t think we played great, I thought it was a low-quality Super League game.

“I’m not overly happy with how we played, but I thought we showed incredible resilience, especially when we were down to twelve. I’m just glad we won.”