Chester Butler insists Bulls want to be the best defensive team in the Betfred Championship, admitting he and his team-mate were frustrated despite only conceding 24 points combined in their last two games, fine wins over Halifax and Featherstone.
Bradford are looking to claim a third big scalp in a row when Toulouse head to Odsal on Saturday evening for a 6pm kick-off, and the experienced Butler insists the hosts “should turn over” last season’s Million Pound Game losers.
It was big talk from the second row, who told the T&A the Bulls have plenty to work on despite their seemingly strong start.
He said: “We definitely can improve defensively.
“We watched the Featherstone game back in training on Tuesday night, but I’d already watched the highlights myself beforehand, and we shouldn’t have conceded the three tries we did.
“They came off the back of our own errors and while fatigue definitely led to some of those mistakes, they were easily avoidable.
“We want to be the best defensive team in the league but to get anywhere near that, we need to cut out those errors we’ve been making.”
It was a similar story when Bulls travelled to Toulouse for last season’s Championship play-off semi-final.
The visitors largely played well, but the concession of some sloppy tries was a major factor in the 38-20 defeat that spelled a heartbreaking end to their season.
Several of the current squad, including Butler, played in that match, which destroyed Bulls’ dreams of promotion to Super League for 2024.
But asked if Saturday evening was something of a revenge mission, the second row insisted: “We’re in a different place this season, with lots of new players, and we’ve established new foundations.
“This is the closest group of players I’ve been around since I signed for Bulls and the atmosphere is a lot better here than it used to be.
“We go into that Toulouse game this weekend feeling we should turn them over.
“Even though they’re a full-time side, and we’re a part-time one, we’ve definitely got the quality in our squad to beat them.”
And that bullish attitude served Bradford well at Featherstone last Sunday, as they eased to a surprisingly comfortable 24-14 win over last year’s runaway league leaders, for their first victory at Post Office Road since 2015.
Butler said: “We knew we would give them a good game after what happened in our pre-season friendly there in January.
“We had a squad of 20 lads and a youngish bench, whereas they had pretty much their starting line-up and Ben Reynolds, who’s since joined Hull KR.
“Despite that, we only just lost the game, so we were confident we could put something on them on Sunday, even with the injuries we’ve got currently.
“We’ve strengthened with the loanees we’ve brought in and players stepping up in unfamiliar roles, so we were confident we could go there and get the win.”
With key players like Ebon Scurr, Ben Blackmore and Lee Gaskell currently out injured, the prospect of a fully-fit Bulls squad in a few weeks is mouthwatering.
And Butler said: “The potential of this team is massive with players like Ebon and Ben back.
“The cover out wide, like Connor Carr on loan and Jayden Myers moving over from the centre, has been great though, and in the front row, Eribe Doro has really stepped up despite playing with niggles, while Dan Smith has been having to do 70 minutes out there.
“Those injured players have been a loss to us, but the way people have stepped up in their absence has limited the impact of that.
“But getting those injured lads back fit and playing is only going to add to our bench strength too, making the squad stronger than it is now.”
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