BRADFORD BULLS coach Kurt Haggerty has said he’d rather blood some of his own youngsters rather than dip into the loan market after more injury disruption in Thursday’s defeat to Wakefield.
So far this year the Bulls have rarely taken advantage of short-term loan deals and that looks set to continue despite now having at least three fewer forwards at their disposal.
Eribe Doro didn’t make the squad for the Wakefield clash after suffering a calf injury against Huddersfield the previous week, with scans confirming two tears that have seen him ruled out for the season, while Loghan Lewis pulled out in the warm-up after a flare-up of his continuing knee injury.
Add to that injuries sustained throughout a bruising 80 minutes to Andy Ackers, Dan Russell, Waqa Blake and Guy Armitage (groin) and the Bulls are short on troops ahead of next Sunday’s trip to table toppers Leeds Rhinos.
“Losing Eribe for the season is massive for us and just adds to the list and I think I’m now up to four or five front-rowers that are injured.
“Andy Ackers has potentially hurt his thumb badly, Dan Russell has got a really strange and bizarre issue with his eye, Waqa is on one knee and Guy Armitage is struggling and probably shouldn’t have played, so we are walking wounded.
“Loghan was coming back from his injury early because we were pretty short of bodies and he nobly put his hand up and said he’d play.
“He got through the week relatively okay, then regressed a little bit in the team run and didn’t tell me. Then we’ve had the outcome of the warm-up. He tried to be a good soldier and it’s just caught up with him and that did knock us a bit.
“The one thing that I’m pretty proud of that we’ve done as a club and something I’ve done as head coach is that we’ve not really dipped into that loan market much this year.
“I’d rather play our own so I can bring the kids back that are on loan elsewhere and I’ll bring boys out from the reserves, rather than look at loans.
“Even for the boys who are not Super League ready, by being exposed to that and playing it, it’s only going to help us moving forward because it’ll look a whole lot different for this club next year.”
Despite all the setbacks, the Bulls still dug in and remained competitive throughout the 26-12 defeat, with the scoreline not truly reflecting their efforts, which was one aspect in particular that frustrated Haggerty.
“Usually in close games, it comes down to four or five big moments, and when you’re not sure why you’ve won or lost those moments, it’s very, very difficult to wrap your head around.
“Usually a penalty leads to a try and we’ve got to be more resilient in their moments. I think we showed that at times, but we didn’t always get it quite right.
“We showed resilience all the way through the game. Our effort and application was class.
“The players were all devastated, but I’m happy they’re devastated, because if they sit there and say they are proud because they’ve had a dig, they’ll never win big games.
“If I’d have walked into a changing room that was pretty lively, I’d been very frustrated and irritated, but I wasn’t, it was very down and I’m glad I’ve seen that response from them.”