Bradford Bulls boss Francis Cummins has been handed a huge injury boost ahead of this weekend’s enormous clash with Wakefield Trinity Wildcats, as he looks set to welcome back fiv key squad members for the match.
Matt Diskin and Chev Walker, who both missed last weekend’s defeat at Catalan Dragons, will definitely feature, and Cummins can also call on the services of longer-term absentees Jamal Fakir, Dale Ferguson and Matty Blythe for the game, with Cummins admitting it has given everyone a boost to see such healthy numbers in the squad once again.
“Hopefully the five lads in question will be back. It’ll be the first time in three or four weeks where we’ve had a squad to train. To see the handful of lads back training with us has been good, and they’ve given us all a lift when we’ve seen them back out there,” Cummins admitted.
“It’s perfect to get them back anyway, because we’ve had to toil long and hard. We’ve had young lads jumping in, and providing everyone is OK for Sunday we might not be too far off our squad numbers.
“Matt Diskin and Chev Walker are definitely back – they’ve been playing with knocks for the last six weeks, but they’ve been finding a way to play the games. It came to a point where we had to give them a rest, so they had to have a weekend off.”
Ferguson has been plagued with injuries since he joined the club from Huddersfield Giants, having been limited to just a clutch of appearances this year with multiple injury setbacks. Cummins claims the Scotland international was desperate to play against Catalan last week, but the club could not afford to risk him.
“The other three have all trained; they’ve trained in and out for the last week or so, and Dale was telling me he was ready to play last week. But he needed a good week’s training under his belt, and he’s looked sharp this week. Matty and Dale are looking good, but we’ll have to see how they pull up because they’ve had a session where they’ve bashed each other up.
“Jamal has had the pin out of his finger, and he could well feature too.”
