BULLS half-back Dec Patton admitted his side’s treatment of the ball cost them dearly in their heavy 52-14 Betfred Championship defeat in Toulouse on Saturday, admitting that will happen if they “clock off” against top opposition.

It was a rude awakening for Bulls, who had gone unbeaten in their five games under Lee Greenwood and Brian Noble before the weekend.

Asked if the heat and travel to France had played a factor in the loss, Patton insisted: “No, I thought the preparation was good.

“It was a different environment to what we’re used to but then it’s good to do something different.

“We were confident, but we lost with how we played and how we treated the ball.

“There were errors offensively and defensively and we gave up too many penalties.

“Losing Jordan Baldwinson and Keven Appo affected us in the middle, but with Toulouse constantly squeezing us and us conceding a lot of penalties in that heat, that result was to be expected.”

It was Patton’s first game in the halves for Bulls alongside Lee Gaskell, with the former saying: “Lee brings that Super League quality to us.

“We’ve only had a couple of chats and couple of sessions together, but you build that partnership in time.

“It’s good to have someone else to rely on in there, and someone who can take control of a game like me.

“We didn’t have many opportunities to show what we could do with the ball, but I thought we did alright when we did move it about.”

Patton was keen to strike a balance between labelling the performance as unacceptable, but not one to panic about.

He said: “It felt pretty hopeless out there at times when we kept coughing up the ball, and the scoreline shows that was the case.

“It was a bite on the backside for us and shows that if we do clock off, good teams can put a score on us, but just think about where we were at as a team before we went on this run.

“We’re expecting to win every game we go into, but you won’t do that, so you just have to look at this as a bump in the road.

“We’ve done well in spells in recent games, then got on top, but not this time.

“We’ll learn from our mistakes on Saturday but this can happen to the best of teams.

“There’s no panic stations, it’s one defeat in six games, and hopefully we can go on another good run next month now.”