Bulls' joint-top try scorer Nathan McAvoy is being held up as the major success story of the club's highly successful squad system.

One of the most impressive features of the side's 100 per cent start to the season is the way players left out one week have bounced back the next to keep competition for places at fever pitch in the build-up to the Challenge Cup final against Leeds at Murrayfield on April 29.

Coach Matthew Elliott says: "Of course I was pleased with the way David Boyle and Lee Radford came back so strongly last week after missing the semi-final but the man who has perhaps benefited most is Nathan.

"We have a lot of competition in the backs and his reaction has been superb.

"I thought in the middle third of last season he was as good as anything in the competition but his form this year has surpassed that.

"His defence has been superb, he is taking chances confidently and his work-rate coming in off the wing to help the forwards has been of the highest calibre."

McAvoy was signed from Salford for £140,000 in the summer of 1988 and has struggled to reproduce the form which made him a teenage sensation at the Willows.

But he still showed glimpses of his potential and finished last season with a very creditable tally of 19 tries.

This season he has already notched seven, including two at Huddersfield last Sunday to bring him level at the top of the Bulls' try chart with Michael Withers.

Meanwhile, Elliott is set to have a full squad to choose from for Sunday's visit of Castleford Tigers to Odsal (6.35pm).

Stuart Spruce (thigh), Mike Forshaw (hamstring) and Bernard Dwyer (arm) are all fit for action while they could be joined in the selection frame by scrum-half Paul Deacon.

The goalkicking half-back is pencilled in for another run-out with the Alliance side at Castleford tonight and Elliott is keen to get him as much game time as possible in the next few weeks.

"He got through the full 80 minutes last week but is obviously still a little way short of peak condition. It just a matter of spending time in the middle and that will come."

Elliott will be especially keen to have Deacon available in time for the clash with London Broncos on Good Friday when the Paul brothers will be missing because of Test duty for New Zealand in Australia.

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