Bradford Bulls head coach Eamon O'Carroll hailed his side's defensive determination yesterday afternoon, which has been an important hallmark of their season so far.

Bulls rounded off their pre-season campaign with an impressive 34-8 victory over a young Leeds Rhinos side at Odsal, meaning they won all three of their encounters at home.

The madcap 34-32 triumph over Hull FC a fortnight ago was a chance for Bradford to blood their youngsters, but in the trio of friendlies where they had out something close to their first-choice side, Halifax at Odsal on Christmas Eve, Featherstone away and Leeds at home, Bulls have conceded just 40 points in total.

Reflecting on that record, O'Carroll said: "The pleasing thing for me is the team want to go after that area, they want to be good defensively.

"We've had some challenges in pre-season, but we're in a good spot at the minute, even if we want to make sure we still get better in those areas.

"We'll keep working on ourselves defensively, but I can't congratulate the team enough for their effort today, which I thought was outstanding."

Bradford Telegraph and Argus: Bulls head coach Eamon O'Carroll had plenty to be pleased about at full-time after his side's win over Leeds.Bulls head coach Eamon O'Carroll had plenty to be pleased about at full-time after his side's win over Leeds. (Image: Tom Pearson.)

Two of the standout moments in defence against Leeds came courtesy of two of Bulls' more experienced players.

Dan Smith produced a try-saving tackle on young Jack Sinfield to stop Leeds going in front early on, while Kieran Gill ran virtually the length of the field in the second half to deny the visitors a try in the corner after a lightning counter-attack, even though the game was virtually over as a contest by that point.

O'Carroll said: "We spoke over pre-season, and addressed it again earlier this week, about what we want to achieve this year.

"If we want to achieve those things, we're going to have to do the little things like those vital tackles.

"When it doesn't really matter on the face of it, like Kieran's tackle, it still matters to us.

"We want to make sure we're always competing and stopping tries like that.

"That was an area all the coaching team were really pleased about today, it looked like we were desperate to stop tries.

"It might not have made a difference to the result, but it mattered to our performance, and performance is what matters at the minute at this stage of the season."