BULLS’ four interchanges on Sunday all had a hand in their side’s excellent 25-12 play-off eliminator win against Featherstone, which has set up a semi-final at Toulouse this weekend.

Franklin Pele and Ebon Scurr punched their usual holes in the opposition defence, while Mitch Souter played a key role in the tries for Jordan Lilley and Keven Appo, making the exact impact head coach Eamon O’Carroll was hoping for.

But a special word must go to the final member of the fab four.

On-loan from Wigan, prop Harvey Makin is still only 20 years old, and Sunday marked by far the most important game of his senior career to date.

Yet he looked anything but overawed, and was constantly a problem for Featherstone, making ground like Pele and Scurr and forcing the visitors into handling errors.

O’Carroll told the T&A after the game: “I’m massively proud of him and I said that to him at full-time.

“He’s such a great kid, who plays at a great club, so he knows how to handle pressure.

“Harvey does that by just doing his job and doing it to the best of his ability.

“I thought he was outstanding today, as were the majority of the pack.

“Dan Smith brings a different dynamic to the game for us, I thought Bruno (Michael Lawrence) was outstanding and Eribe (Doro) just did what he does.

Michael Lawrence led from the front for Bulls on Sunday afternoon against Featherstone. (Image: Tom Pearson.)

“Ebon’s getting better and better with every game too, and I thought he really set the tone on a couple of our tries too. He was fantastic.

“Harvey as well of course, and I might have missed a couple of lads out there, but I thought my pack were outstanding this afternoon.”

Bulls looked as if they were going to record a fourth shutout in six home games, but they switched off defensively in the final 10 minutes and conceded tries to Josh Hardcastle and Brad Day, both converted by Ben Reynolds.

It was one of the only negatives on a largely magnificent afternoon for Bradford, but given how much O’Carroll and his team have prided themselves on their defence this season, it was understandable the head coach was a little disappointed with that ragged finale.

He said: “I think we set the tone early in the season as a group that we want to be a defensive-orientated team.

“I’m a big believer in that and it’s important we have that attitude, so I’m glad we’re disappointed we didn’t put Featherstone to the sword at the end of the game.

“You have to give credit to Featherstone, I thought they executed those tries really well, but the disappointing thing for me is that maybe we got a little bit comfortable in the closing stages.

“That’s a dangerous thing to happen, and I’ll be getting answers as to why that happened in training this week.”