Steve McNamara admits his embarrassed Bradford side have received a powerful kick up the backside.

The Bulls are still smarting from a 38-6 thumping at the hands of St Helens in Sun-day’s home opener – a defeat that left them bottom of the Super League table.

Much soul-searching has followed and harsh words have been exchanged but McNamara believes the jarring experience could spark his new-look team into life.

A response is certainly needed. If the Bulls lose against Castleford tomorrow night it would be the first time they have started a Super League season with three straight defeats.

“We have to fix up some of the problems that we’ve got,” said McNamara.

“Without doubt, this side is a whole lot better than the side we saw last week.

“When a new group comes together, sometimes as part of the process, something like that hits you on the back of the head like it did last week.

“It could be just the size 11 up our backsides that we all need at this moment in time.

“Some of the pictures we saw were ugly but easily fixable and we’re determined to do that this week.

“Some very harsh words have been said, without a doubt, and we’re hurting real bad from last week but nothing will dent our confidence.

“This group is a new group that’s come together and they’ll be a very good side.”

Having performed major surgery on his squad over the summer, McNamara has yet to get the best out of his new combinations.

New halves Matt Orford and Brett Kearney struggled to forge links with the rest of the team against St Helens, but McNamara hopes the shock suffered could help speed up the process.

He said: “Everyone’s disappointed when a team underperforms and we vastly underperformed.

“This team will come together. They performed reasonably at Huddersfield but underperformed vastly against St Helens.

“As you can imagine, after a performance like that, there was a lot of soul-searching.

“It was a hugely disappointing result and there’s no-one hurting more than us. It’s our job to look at it sensibly, study it and look at the reasons why it happened.

“They’re professional sportsmen and they have a tremendous amount of pride. Their pride’s been hurt, there’s no doubt about that, and they’ll respond.”