Bradford Bulls closing gap to Toulouse but must focus on now

A few months later, the pair met in a Betfred Championship play-off semi-final, and while the visitors were far more competitive that day, they still made costly errors and were always kept at arm’s length in a 38-20 defeat.

But fast forward to this July, and Bulls pulled off a 12-12 draw in the South of France, their only points conceded all afternoon coming while they were down to 12 men.

And where Bradford’s ceiling last year was always realistically the top-three finish they eventually achieved, this year they will be frustrated to have narrowly missed out on second spot to Toulouse, given they threw away three games to lose by a single point.

Bulls had victory in their hands against Featherstone in August, but some dumb decisions led to them suffering a 22-21 defeat. (Image: Tom Pearson.)

All the signs point to a tight and tense play-off semi-final between the pair this Sunday, when until 12 months ago, Bradford pretty much knew they would be on the end of a hiding every time they visited the Stade Ernest-Wallon.

Discussing that change in mindset, Bulls head coach Eamon O’Carroll said: “We’ll approach it very much with an element of excitement that we can go there and win but knowing that we’ve got a job to do.

“Just because we beat them at Odsal in April then drew with them away in July, where we had a real dig, that doesn’t really matter now.

“You don’t take that into the semi-final because both teams are in a very different spot.

“It’s an exciting challenge, but we can’t use the past too much, instead it’s about working extremely hard in training this week.

“We’ve got to fix up some stuff, reinforce the good things we did against Featherstone, and what’s going to give us the best opportunity to go to Toulouse and win.

“It’s going to be a top-end game and it’ll be hard because they’re full-time opposition.

“But there are things we can do to give ourselves the best chance of winning and that’s what we’ll be doing.”

Bulls had their moments in last year’s semi-final and the defeat was made even more agonising by the fact that a win would have put them into a Grand Final at Odsal against London Broncos, who they had already done the double over that season.

Many of Bradford’s squad last season are still here now, and asked if that near-miss in 2023 can fuel those players, O’Carroll said: “Obviously they’ve got that experience of playing in last year’s semi-final and even more of them played in the 1895 Cup semi against Wakefield in May.

“With that in mind, this Sunday shouldn’t be daunting for the players, so they can have that element of the game being exciting for them.

“The team that stays the calmest on the field and does their job normally comes through to win.

“We’ll build the week up right, and I’m sure the lads will mention last year’s semi-final among themselves, but it was a long time ago.

Eamon O'Carroll admits he wasn't overly impressed with the way Bulls played in last year's play-off semi-final defeat against Toulouse. (Image: Tom Pearson.)

“I remember watching the game, and what the players did was what we’ve done for periods this year.

“They were loose, they made errors and there was a bit of ill-discipline.

“Those are things we’ve continually tried to get better at during the course of this season.

“I think we’ve nailed the discipline side of things and we’re going to have to be very good at that over there.”