TRAE O’Sullivan hopes to give Bulls coach John Kear another pre-season headache.

The former Cougars prop has been given a shot at Odsal for the reserves.

But O’Sullivan’s performance against Halifax on Sunday suggests he could push himself towards first-team contention ahead of the new Championship campaign.

Kear said: “Trae rang up and wanted an opportunity. We said to train with us and we’ll give you a few reserve games.

“But he did all right so again it’s another one who is going to make me scratch my head. But that’s good.

“We’ve got 31 squad numbers and six or seven who are outside that such as Alix (Stephenson), Josh (Rickett) and Trae. The more they play like that, the more scratching I’ll be doing.

“I haven’t got any more hair to lose but I’ve certainly got a head to scratch.”

Kear has a wealth of options to pick from and made 11 changes from the Boxing Day friendly with York.

The Bulls now have two games to prepare for next weekend, facing Dewsbury in the Yorkshire Cup on Saturday and then Huddersfield for Michael Lawrence’s testimonial the following day.

He added: “We’ve a big squad and we’ve got some good under-19s as well.

“We’ve purposely not arranged under-19 trials half with this in mind.

“We may well feed a few in next week. When the season starts, we’re also thinking about trying to play a League One side who’ve approached us with our reserves and 19s to keep them ticking over.

“We’ve got enough players for next week and we’ll have two good teams.

“We’ve turned out two different starting teams except for young Matty Storton in both games. It shows we’ve got the capability of doing that.”