Francis Cummins has warned his players they face a backlash from London Broncos tonight as the Bulls seek to move into the quarter-finals of the Tetley’s Challenge Cup.

Tony Rea’s men were stuff-ed 48-12 at Hull FC last week – their tenth defeat of what is rapidly descending into another disappointing season.

Rea accused his troops of letting each other down at the KC Stadium and even made the remarkable claim that some of his players “decided it was too hard to make a tackle” as they conceded 36 points in a second-half horror show.

Although London lie second bottom in the Super League table, they recently turned St Helens over at the Twickenham Stoop and, while the Bulls beat them convincingly at Wycombe last month, Cummins is wary of their threat.

The Bradford chief said: “London’s coach (Rea) has been quite vocal about the way they defended against Hull, so we can expect a bit of a backlash from that.

“We had a very tough game against them down there a few weeks ago.

“They played really well in the first half – and they had a few players missing – but we managed to get on top of them after the break.

“They have a few more players back now than when we played them at Adams Park and that will strengthen them.

“There is also the factor of where they are in the table and the Challenge Cup really l Continued on Page 35gives them something to go for.

“So it’s going to be tough and we need to be at our best, which is something we haven’t been for the last few weeks.”

Indeed, the Bulls have lost their last three Super League outings after being outclassed against Wigan, Warrington and Leeds.

Yet they remain handily placed in seventh spot as they bid to secure a first appearance in the play-offs since 2008.

Cummins admits he is looking for an improvement from his players tonight as they bid to keep their Wembley dream alive.

“We need to get back to where we were a few weeks ago,” he declared.

“We certainly gave Leeds far too much in that first quarter last week and we have to get back to what we were doing.”

The Bulls thumped London 46-20 a month ago but Cummins knows the men from the capital can raise their game on any given day.

“It’s a very tricky cup tie,” added Cummins.

“If we were playing one of the so call ‘big four’ then you would know you have to be at your best to beat them.

“But I’d hate for us to be going down there thinking about the game a few weeks back and feeling it will be easy because that’s not the case at all.

“We weren’t great in the first half against Leeds last week and neither were London in that second half at Hull, so we are very similar in where we are this week coming into the game.

“We need to get back on the horse and prove to ourselves we are a good team.”

Despite the Bulls’ recent wobble in Super League, Cummins believes the second-half display against the Rhinos can provide cause for optimism.

Elliot Kear scored twice and Brett Kearney was also on target as the Bulls effectively outscored Leeds 16-12 in the second half but still lost 42-22.

Cummins said: “If we play to our best we can beat most teams in the competition.

“But it currently looks like we are 30 points behind those top sides so we know we have some work to do, probably more on composure within the bigger games.

“We saw in the second half last week that we can score points against those sides and really 22 points should be good enough to beat anyone.

“We have to lay down the foundations and then we can put teams under pressure and we will have to do that at London.”