Bradford Bulls were today reeling from the news that resurgent prop Paul Anderson looks set to miss the whole of the Super League season with severe knee damage.

Anderson has been in devastating form in the opening weeks of the season and was going well in yesterday's 62-22 rout of St Helens in a warm-up game at Odsal when he was met by a four-man tackle as he charged for the visitors line around the hour mark.

It took several minutes to get him to his feet and he then had to be carried into the dressing room where Bulls coach Matthew Elliott was fearing the worst afterwards.

"There are obviously more checks to do but it looks very bad at this stage. He has so little movement in his leg I do not expect to see him playing again this season.

"It is a real blow because Paul has worked so hard in the off season and I expected him to be among the top props in the competition this season.

"Fortunately we have good cover with Brian McDermott, Tahi Reihana, Warren Jowitt and Paul Medley all very capable in that position but Paul's size gave us an extra dimension and we will certainly miss him."

It comes as a further major setback for Anderson whose career at his previous club, Halifax, was blighted by illness and injury.

Opponents Saints were also counting the cost of the contest with prop Apollo Perelini (knee) and expensive summer signings Chris Smith (ankle) and Paul Sculthorpe (leg) all nursing serious injuries.

But Elliott defended the decision to play the hastily arranged friendly.

"We needed the game and it is just one of those unfortunate things. Paul certainly did not sustain his injury because he was holding back. He was just hit by a very strong tackle and his leg was forced forwards and then back with his knee taking the full force."

But Saints' boss Shaun McRae admitted: "My first reaction when I was asked if I wanted this game was 'no'. But I did not want a fortnight break before Super League and we decided to go ahead.

"It has certainly backfired and I think we have to look at the whole structure of our game. Perhaps we should look at playing cup games and league on alternate weeks so that teams are not forced to take on these games which are really meaningless.

"Both ourselves and Bradford have picked up serious injuries and it makes you wonder when stars players are forced to miss Super League because of matches likes this which are of little importance."

Aside from Anderson's injury Elliott was satisfied with the exercise which saw the Bulls dominate for long spells in a 12-try romp.

"I felt offensively we were pretty good throughout and there were some pleasing individual performances too. It sets us up nicely for the start of Super League."

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