BRADFORD Bulls head coach Eamon O’Carroll views this Sunday’s Betfred Challenge Cup third round game at home to North Wales Crusaders as a potentially “dangerous” assignment.
The Crusaders were only 80 minutes away from becoming a Championship side for 2024, only to lose last year’s League 1 play-off final to Doncaster, and they gave second-tier side Swinton Lions a good run for their money in the 1895 Cup at the end of January, only to lose 40-12 in the end.
And O’Carroll knows one familiar face to him and Odsal will not want to go down without a fight.
Speaking to the T&A, the Bulls boss said: “We saw what North Wales could do the other week against Championship opposition, and they caused Swinton a few issues.
“They’re a competitive side and having been been team-mates with (Crusaders winger) Pat Ah Van for six years at Widnes, and knowing he’s a former Bulls player, I know he’ll certainly want to prove a point.
“It could be a dangerous afternoon for us against them on Sunday if we don’t turn up with the right attitude, not that I would ever expect us to do that based on what I’ve seen from this group so far.
“As long as we approach it in the same way as Dewsbury in the 1895 Cup last weekend, or in the same way as we would against Championship opposition in the fourth round if we get through, that’s all I can ask for.
“But I feel it’ll be a difficult game regardless, and I’m not sat comfortably just because we scored 40 points at Dewsbury.
“There’s still things we need to be better at than we were in that match, and we know opposition head coaches will be targeting those aspects of our game until we improve on them.”
O’Carroll is happy the draw has given Bulls Challenge Cup ties at Odsal in rounds three and four, provided they make it through to the latter of course.
He said: “We hope to be at home as many times as we can because the players can feed off that energy from the crowd.
“I’m really looking forward to Sunday as it’s my first competitive home game in charge, but even the Odsal friendly against Leeds, I was taken aback and blown away seeing so many fans there when I walked out of tunnel.
“Then again, I already had fond memories of the atmosphere and crowd when I used to play against Bulls here.
“We hope to have as many people as possible coming to watch us at Odsal this season, whether that’s for a game against an amateur side or Leeds in the Challenge Cup semis.”
The injury news is relatively positive going into Sunday, barring the update on winger Ben Blackmore, who hurt his leg following a poor tackle on him at Dewsbury.
O’Carroll said: “Ben is getting his scan results this week but it’s not looking too good with his leg.
“But with Ebon Scurr, though he’s currently struggling and away from the group with illness, his knee injury from the Dewsbury game doesn’t look to be as bad as we first thought.
“Eribe Doro and Dan Smith will both train for the first time this week tonight (Thursday) and we hope that’ll be the case for Billy Jowitt, but we’ll need to assess his back issue first.
“Michael Lawrence’s back problem is just something we’ll have to monitor.
“He’s a doubt for North Wales, because we want to do right by him and we know how huge he’s going to be for us this season, so we’re not going to push him to play unless he’s at 100 per cent by Sunday.”
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