THERE will be plenty of familiar faces on show at Odsal when Widnes come to Bradford tomorrow in the Betfred Championship.
But Bulls head coach Mark Dunning won't be wasting too much time focusing on the return of 2022 alumni John Kear, Ryan Millar and Ant Walker, or naively think knowing the trio so well hands him a huge advantage in his preparations.
Having coached both Millar and Walker last season, Dunning conceded: "I'm not going to sit here and pretend I don't know a lot about them both.
"They were guys who were here with us just a few months ago and that I spent time coaching on a regular basis.
"But there are no advantages for us with that being the case."
The main reason for that is that, ultimately, Kear's 2023 Widnes are not his 2022 Bradford side, which is why Dunning's innate knowledge of the veteran may not be of any real use tomorrow.
He said: "If you look at when we played them on the final day of last season, it's two very different sets of players.
"We've got over a dozen new signings for 2023, and Widnes have made around nine or 10 themselves.
"This game isn't about John Kear and I anyway, it's about the 17 players from both sides."
As for the challenge the Cheshire side, who have two league wins from two, bring to Odsal tomorrow, Dunning said: "Widnes are littered with good players.
"They'll be full of confidence after winning both of their games so far, and they'll want to attack this fixture.
"We've done our due diligence on them, as we do for any opponent, but ultimately, I'll focus on what my boys can do before we worry ourselves about Widnes."
Bulls did not do what they were capable of in a poor 32-16 defeat at York on Monday, with Dunning admitting: "There's got to be a reaction, because we put ourselves under pressure at York with errors off the ball and a completion rate that was far too low.
"York scored tries directly from three errors we made, so if we don't make those, we win the game, even if it maybe wouldn't have been a deserved victory for us.
"We're still gelling as a team, but we didn't have the ball in hand enough on Monday to give ourselves a chance of winning."
But the Bulls head coach added: "There's no panic, it was round two, and we've lost one game.
"I understand the frustration from the fans over the defeat though, and the expectation of us against Widnes, quite rightly, is that we go out there and put that right."
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