BRADFORD Bulls scrum-half Jordan Lilley insists the blame for Mark Dunning's departure lies at the feet of the players, and insisted the former head coach did not lose the dressing room.

A woeful 46-12 Betfred Championship defeat at struggling Barrow on Sunday cost Dunning his job after just 10 months in charge, the head coach leaving with Bulls sat eighth in the 14-team table.

Lilley said: "It was disappointing to find out Mark was leaving, and upsetting personally, as he did a lot for me while he was at the club.

"Ultimately, it's down to us players why he's lost his job, so it's gutting in that aspect.

"That's sport. We've not been performing and the club had to make a decision on how to move forward."

Dunning was furious with his players after Sunday's defeat in Cumbria, leading to suggestions he had lost their trust and respect as a head coach.

But Lilley said: "He definitely didn't lose the dressing room, the boys were behind him.

"We were upset with how we'd performed and we just couldn't get it right on the field in the last few games.

"We've not stayed in matches, and once we've gone a few scores behind, we seem to fall into a massive hole.

"Only the players can fix that and we're working hard to do so, because no-one goes out there wanting to play badly or make errors.

"We want to win each week and I promise the people saying we don't care that it's the opposite, we're trying our rocks off to fix things up.

"We want to get back on the ladder, because we want to be in play-off contention, and we're way off that level at the minute."

In a bizarre quirk, Bulls have won against four of the current top five in the league this season, but have only beaten Whitehaven outside of that.

Lilley said: "We're trying to figure that out, because we've been really good in some games, and have beaten Toulouse, Sheffield and Widnes at home.

"We've struggled against teams people expect us to beat but I heard someone say the other day that the Championship is massively open this year and there hasn't been a truer word spoken.

"Teams at the bottom can beat those towards the top and there are no real blowouts."

That being said, Bulls' thumping defeat at Barrow was something close to a blowout, and hard to comprehend given the visitors led 6-4 at the break.

Lilley said: "As a group, we know there were too many errors we made individually, myself included.

"We have to fix that up, and work out why we moved out of the line here, made that read there or chose that option in attack, things like that.

"We have to work on ourselves as individuals and come together collectively to show that improvement.

"We'll be working hard on our games in training this week and trying to fix things up ahead of the game at home to Swinton on Sunday, where we want to bounce back in front of our fans."