Bradford Bulls not fazed by misses at Featherstone Rovers

While Sunday’s 16-12 friendly defeat at Featherstone represented a solid second hit-out of the season for Bradford, one glaring statistic leapt out.

Bulls missed all three of their conversion attempts, two from Billy Jowitt and one from Jordan Lilley, when a 100 per cent success rate would have seen them snatch victory.

In Dec Patton, Bradford had one of the most reliable goal-kickers in the Betfred Championship in 2022 and 2023.

But with the stand-off now at Swinton, Lilley is the likeliest candidate to be Bulls’ first choice for penalties and conversions, even with a slightly patchy past record from the tee.

Jordan Lilley can always be relied on for a decisive drop goal, like at Sheffield last September, but he will be looking to bring some consistency from the kicking tee too in 2024. (Image: Tom Pearson.)

Yet O’Carroll insisted: “I thought our goal kicking went well against Halifax on Christmas Eve and in pre-season, we’ve been training on a five-a-side football pitch, so we’ve not had chance to practice that side of our game.

“We do know we need to be better at that though, and it’s something we’ve spoken about as a group after Sunday, so it’s something we will make a point of working on in practice.

“I’d disagree that it’s a weaker facet of Jordan’s game too, I think he’s more than capable of doing that job for us.

“But I agree that it’s something we can certainly improve on.”

Lilley and Jowitt have featured in both pre-season games so far, but elsewhere there was plenty of rotation between the two squads, with more of that to come when Bulls host Hull FC at Odsal this weekend.

Addressing the make-up of the squad that travelled to Post Office Road, O’Carroll said: “There was an element of forced changes for Featherstone.

“Dan Smith had picked up a nasty wound against Halifax and it hadn’t quite healed in time for Sunday.

“He was still desperate to play, but we took that decision out of his hands to make sure he was right for our upcoming trial games against Hull and Leeds, which he will be.

“As I said after the game, Eliot Peposhi was ill over Christmas so he missed out, but the other changes from Halifax were planned, with the likes of Michael Lawrence just rested.

“I also felt it was important to bring the likes of Ben Blackmore, Joe Arundel and Dan Okoro in, to give them their first game time of the season.”

Blackmore scored a try for Bulls on Sunday, in what was their third close game against Championship heavyweights Featherstone in a row, after two battling defeats in the 2023 league season.

Ben Blackmore reaches out to score on Sunday on what was his first Bulls appearance of the season. (Image: Tom Pearson.)

These games have come off the back of some painful hammerings at the hands of Rovers in recent years, with O’Carroll saying: “We’re happy with how competitive it was on Sunday.

“Now we have to concentrate on the areas we’ve been good at as well as where we need to improve.

“The game on Sunday gave us plenty of things to look at and I’m happy we got the opportunity to play a team like Featherstone in pre-season, as it highlighted our stronger and weaker areas so far.”

He added: “I saw an improvement on certain things we’d worked on in training after the game against Halifax.

“For that reason, and the fact we were coming off the back of a Christmas break with this new squad and me as a new coach, I’m actually happier with how we did in the Fev game than the Fax one.

“We’re not in a bad place currently and we’re heading in the right direction, but we’re still building and we’ve got two more trial games to work on certain things.”