Bradford Bulls chasing victory over York Knights at Odsal

The Odsal outfit are on a two-game winless run, albeit against extremely strong opposition, but they have the chance to ‘get back on the horse’ in front of their home fans on Sunday.

York claimed a 25-14 victory in the reverse fixture back in April at a time when Bulls were looking rampant following victories at Featherstone and at home to Toulouse.

And in Bradford’s last two matches, O’Carroll’s men have shown that they can go toe-to-toe with the Betfred Championship’s best, both in the South of France and at Odsal last weekend when they restricted league leaders, Wakefield Trinity to very little opportunities.

However, the Bulls head coach has urged his side to go one step further against an inform York side this time around.

He said: “It’s going to be another challenging fixture for us, there’s no doubt about it. However, it’s key that we get back to winning ways after missing out on points in the last two games.

“We’re playing two teams in the next couple of weeks (Widnes after York) who have beaten us already this season, so it gives us the opportunity to rectify the results from earlier on in the campaign.

“I know they’re (York) playing with a couple of injuries, but they’re playing some good rugby, they’re squad is still really strong and they’re an inform team. They’re also extremely well drilled.

“But what I can say is that our camp is in a great frame of mind, and we can take a lot of positives from the last two weeks, despite not getting the results we wanted.

“We need to build on that by putting in a strong performance against York.”

Eliot Peposhi goes over for a consolation try for the Bulls at York in April (Image: Tom Pearson)

Giving his thoughts on what improvements can be made from last weekend’s defeat to Wakefield, O’Carroll said: “We have had a good look on where we can be better, and the discipline side of our game certainly sticks out; a lot has been made of it.

“We’re not in control of what decisions will be made, but we are in control of our actions and there are some that we could have done better with.

“So, that’s what we’ve tried to focus on this week.”

Despite highlighting the need for an improvement in discipline, O’Carroll has called for his players to maintain a certain level of aggression within their performance and duals, particularly.

He said: “It’s important that we find the right balance and that will come through learning as a group.

“Jorge’s sinbin against Toulouse was fair, so we’ll look at different ways he (Taufua) can navigate certain scenarios, so he doesn’t get sent off the field.

“As a coach, that’s my job so we’ll be working hard with Jorge on that moving forward.

“Likewise, against Wakefield I feel that two of the incidents which they scored from were fair penalties, and the other two not so much.

“So, it’s about finding the right balance and being in control of what we can be in control of.”