BRADFORD BULLS lost yet more players to injury in their 40-16 defeat at Hull KR.
Already down to the bare bones, coach Kurt Haggerty described their effort as “very, very special”.
But he said: “We lost Ryan Sutton to a calf injury and Connor Wynne with a shoulder.
“We also lost Guy Armitage, but I am unsure yet as to what that is.
“Connor did well to take his try but he picked up a knock on his shoulder and that saw us having to move players around.
“When you see the effort the boys put in, I am so proud of them.
“We were resilient in the first half but we started the second half poorly and we dropped balls in first sets. Losing Ryan Sutton threw us off.
“But I thought as a group of men we were good and that performance was very, very special.”
On Academy product Alfie Leake’s debut, Haggerty said: “He looked like Bambi on ice at one point but I’m proud of his efforts as he gave everything.
“He will learn from his errors but I want him to go away and be proud of how he played.
“We gave Alfie his debut, Jamie Gill came back two weeks earlier than he should have (from injury) and Loghan Lewis was also back early.
“We could have gone in to get (more) loan players, but we wanted to go with our own.”
On the Bradford supporters who were rowdy behind their team all night, he added: “They are a pretty special group of fans and they understand the situation we are in with the injuries.”