Australian market sees "forced hand" work for Bradford Bulls

They will join fellow Australians Mitch Souter, Zac Fulton and Tyran Ott in the squad, with all five players currently under 25 and all five having got NSW or Queensland Cup experience with NRL teams under their belts.

Rules were loosened ahead of this season to make those exact type of deals easier for Betfred Championship clubs, and Bradford have taken full advantage.

When asked by the T&A if Bulls had deliberately targeted that specific market for 2024, head coach Eamon O'Carroll said: "It's a really strong market to go and look at.

"I wouldn't say it was my initial intention to go down that route, but the lads we have brought in have been awesome, not just on the field either.

"What they've done in training, with the standards they drive home, they really want to do well for the club and they've added an element of freshness to the squad.

"It's nice for us to offer an opportunity for quality players to come and ply their trade at a good club too."

He added: "We went with Mitch first and really liked what he was doing.

"We were actually looking at Max before Zac, but Zac became available first, and it's worked out nicely that those two are really good mates.

"We've probably gone into that market a little bit more than we expected to due to us having a key number of players missing through injury.

"Our hand's probably been forced a little bit but we've worked extremely hard to make sure those lads from Australia are the right calibre and the right person for this club, and we seem to have nailed that."

Bradford face Doncaster tomorrow in the Betfred Championship and currently sit fifth in the table, with seven wins from their opening 11 games.

Barrow's record is the exact opposite of Bulls, but despite winning more than a third of their matches so far, they sit second-bottom and in the relegation zone.

They also gave Bulls several scares at Odsal earlier this month before the hosts edged to a 36-24 win, and it shows just how tight the table is.

Barrow are in the relegation zone of the Betfred Championship as it stands, yet their performances this season, including at Odsal, have not had the look of those of a bottom-two side. (Image: Tom Pearson.)

This weekend's opponents Doncaster were hunting down the play-offs a couple of weeks ago, but now sit eighth and only a point clear of the drop zone.

O'Carroll said: "We spoke about this when we came back from our break after beating Barrow, that our points difference is going to be key at the end of the year given how tight things are.

"We want to make sure our points against stays healthy and we've got a bit of work to do there.

"It's hugely frustrating when we look at the tries we conceded against Whitehaven and Barrow in our last two games.

"Teams are having to work hard to score against us, but we're just not seeing sets out and we're allowing the opposition to pick up scrappy tries.

"We're filthy on ourselves with that and we want to be better at cutting it out."

Doncaster have suffered thumping away defeats to Halifax and Toulouse in their last two matches, but O'Carroll warned: "We don't look into their results and whether that bodes well for us, but the quality of the opposition and the threats they've got instead."

"We don't take into account the pitch at Odsal too much but if anything, I think it suits a team like Doncaster with the personnel they've got.

"We've got our own objectives though in what we want to do this month, and how that will help us a long way down the line, so we'll solely focus on that going into this weekend's game."