Steve McNamara hailed red-hot Brett Kearney after his man of the match performance helped Bradford to a 19-12 win against Harlequins last night.

Moved from stand-off to replace Dave Halley at full back, the Aussie star dazzled in a game generally low on entertainment.

“We felt we needed to slightly adjust a couple of things,” said Bulls boss McNamara.

“We felt we needed to come up with more tackle busts. I felt we hadn’t been breaking enough tackles and Brett certainly showed the way to do that. He was pretty red-hot there for a period of time.

“Playing at No 6 and No 1 in the modern game is pretty similar, it was just in bringing the ball back we needed a change.

“Dave Halley has been doing pretty well in that but I thought we needed more in breaking tackles.”

Despite Kearney’s stand-out performance, the Bulls never really got going, although McNamara saw signs of potential.

He said: “The conditions were tougher than they looked. There was a lot of endeavour from both sides but it certainly wasn’t a sparkling sort of performance from either side.

“We’d like to be right at our best but we don’t need to be yet as long as we keep picking up points and keep building.

“We showed signs and in the first 25 minutes of the second half, I’m not sure how we didn’t run away with that game.”

The good news for the Bulls is that Andy Lynch should be fit to face Leeds Rhinos on Thursday despite going off in the first half with knee and ankle problems.

Meanwhile, Bradford are thought to be closing in on the signing of 17-year-old Wakefield half back Cain Southernwood.

The highly-rated England Academy star would be an ideal fit for the Bulls, who lack depth in the halves, with Danny Addy currently the only recognised back-up in the squad.

Southernwood was given a Super League squad number by Wakefield at the start of the campaign, anticipating a breakthrough into first-team contention.

It is believed one of the Bulls’ fringe first-team players could head to the Wildcats in return.