Bulls prop Brian McDermott is determined that it will be the Warrington players who feel under the weather at Headingley tomorrow night.
Despite playing his part in Sunday's 58-4 Super League thumping over tomorrow's opponents the longest serving member of the Odsal squad was hardly in the best shape to enjoy it. Fans looked on in horror as he vomited on the pitch after falling to his knees early in the second half - but happily the in-form prop is raring to go again this weekend.
"I presume it is a bug of some sort because all week I had indigestion, which is not too much of a problem," he said. "But if you add a few nerves with that you end up vomiting and you can't really defend in the line while you are doing that."
But earlier there had been little sign of illness as he helped the Bulls pack devastate the opposition including the much-hyped former Brisbane Broncos prop Andrew Gee.
"He's a bit of a hot head but I enjoyed it," said McDer-mott. "He played for Brisbane for so many years he's got to be a good player but if he thought he was going to come to Odsal and expect me to stand back and admire him he had another thing coming."
But McDermott has enough respect for his rivals to know they'll come gunning for him and his colleagues tomorrow.
"I wish now we had won by two points on Sunday!" he said. "I know that last week they will have been so embarrassed when they got on the coach.
"If I played in that game I would want to rectify it this week. Gee, Nutley, Nikaua and their pack will want to knock the hell out of us and their backs will want to run all over us. It all makes for a good game."
McDermott has begun the season in great style but says the Bulls' impressive start to the campaign has been very much a team effort on and off the field.
"Personally I feel as though I am playing well," he said. "But like any man in the squad they will all say it is easier to play well when everyone else is doing their job.
"The coaching staff are excellent because they give us a good game plan but our conditioner Carl Jennings also deserves a lot of credit. We worked our socks off during the close season.
"We went off to Lanzarote for seven days but prior to that did three solid days training. We had half a day off to go home and get our kit, turned up at 3am the following morning, got to Lanzarote at 8am and started training soon afterwards. We then did as many weights, sprint sessions and work on tackling techniques as you can imagine and at 8pm each night we had lectures on the plan for the season.
"If you go through something like that then you are bound to come through it more knowledgeable. That is one of the Bulls' strengths in that from number one to number 30 every man knows what the next is aiming for. Whether defending his own line or attacking the opposition every man knows what the goal is and how to go about it.
"We have been able to build year after year. Looking back, the 1995-96 squad was a watered down version of what we have now. We havn't changed the method of going forward but the vehicles and engines doing it are bigger and stronger.
"Good preparation counts for a lot. It's just a supreme understanding. I feel as strong and fit as when I was in the Marines and every man in the squad is feeling that way. "
But despite all the early-season accolades McDermott insists complacency will not be a factor.
"If I was asked six months ago I might have given you a different answer. But with what happened in the Grand Final a week after thumping them, I don't think so."
We don't all walk about talking about losing in a Grand Final but I still wonder quite how it happened."
Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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