Bradford Bulls coach Matthew Elliott saw his side blast aside reigning Super League champions St Helens on opening night and then insisted: "we have a massive amount of improvement in us."

The rousing 32-10 triumph was sweet revenge for their Grand Final defeat by Saints at Old Trafford last October but Elliott maintained: "It's a good start but that's all it is a start.

"Defensively our shape looks great but we were untidy offensively at times, although when we did finally put it together we had a lot of penetration and they struggled to hold us.

"Our attack is the discipline that we can work most on but there are some signs there that when we click we are going to be a very, very difficult unit to contain.

"The only problem with our defence tonight was that we had to do too much of it because of the amount of ball we put down.

"We have a long campaign and we are very ambitious and very optimistic but we don't want to start walking hand in hand in the sunlight just yet. We need to maintain our focus."

Centre Michael Withers who grabbed his fifth try in three games was the only injury concern after being pulled off close to the hour mark with a bruised sternum.

Prop Paul Anderson pulled out on the morning of the match with 'flu but both he and Withers are expected to be available for next Sunday's Challenge Cup quarter-final at Halifax Blue Sox.

Bulls win was only their fifth in 27 years at Knowsley Road.

They have now scored 19 tries and conceded just two in three League and Cup matches so far and are a clearly determined to make up for last season's disappointments.

St Helens coach Ellery Hanley was furious with his men. "I think my players sent their little brothers and sisters to play tonight," said Hanley.

"The only consolation was that the game only lasted 80 minutes - it was good to hear the final whistle."

Hanley, whose side were knocked out of the Challenge Cup at Leeds last Saturday, is dismayed by their form.

"We shot ourselves with a double-barrelled shotgun in both feet," added Hanley.

"We never learned the valuable lessons from last week, which is a great disappointment to me.

"I do my work on the opposition and then it's up to the players to perform but we didn''t control the football and we didn't complete our sets of six throughout the game.

"Bradford were very good but they played against a poor side who defended very poorly."

Tickets for the cup tie at Halifax go on general sale on Monday morning at Odsal. The match is all-ticket with a 10,000 capacity. Bulls have been allocated around 4,000 tickets.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.