See they put up a valiant effort in Toulouse...

Expecting an inevitable backlash against us and may have been targeting this one rather than Toulouse. They've some quality players in there, Briscoe, Hall, Lovodua. So they have some strike and we will be stung if we aren't on it. That said I don't think they've beaten any of the top 6 yet. Remind me abit of Keighley last year, their team has some standout stars, but probably lacks depth thoughout the team. Win this and then we've got Dewsbury, which even we can't love up and we should be on a decent position at the half way point of the season. But we absolutely need to tick this one off.

Depends what team turns up. If we do another vanishing act like we did in the first half against Whitehaven, Doncaster could gain a quick lead and make it a difficult afternoon for us. If we turn up and play like we did in the second half at Whitehaven I'm confident we have enough quality to win the game.

Bulls squad. No Pele, Smith, Butler or Lawrence. Doro still servicing his ban.

Smith is out for 12 weeks unfortunately.

So basically the rest of the season...

Lawrence is basically done, isn't he?

I assume that's why we've signed Pele and the Australian prop that is presumably now on his way

I hadn’t spotted Butler wasn’t in the squad. Only 3 recognised props, but Hallas & Appo can both do a job there. Davies, Fulton, Peposhi will round out the rest of the pack.
Backs look fine. Forwards will be a concern.

The aussie lad wont be on his way till back end of July hes got a family to bring too

Is Pele carrying a knock?

No, he's awaiting for a change in his visa so can't play this week. Shame really considering we are light up front.

Shame about Dan Smith, makes a difference when he”s on the park but how often does he play.
I would use Hallas as as the forth prop, think he game is most suited.
Can see it being a tough afternoon.

Cannot make this game unfortunately but I can't help feeling some York vibes about this one. We have two games ahead which in theory we should be more than capable of winning but as we know in the Championship if you don't turn up...

I'd take a narrow victory in the warm conditions and with a few key players missing in the pack.

Gaskell crocked again, suspected hamstring injury. Quality player but I'm afraid he misses far too many games nowadays. Hopefully might be good news for McGowan who has been unlucky to lose his spot to Holmes who for me hasn't quite found the form of 2023 yet.

Probably a good thing that Gaskell won't be at the Bulls next year.
I thought Holmes had a good game today.

What a strange match, Gaskell off injured early and i feared the worst, expecting to revert to our too frequent lack of direction in attack. But no, an excellent first half proved me wrong. Second half though was half d and disappointing. At the start of the match I'd have taken that scoreline, but sadly I feel let down. RE the other comments about Gaskell, im inclined to agree that he's simply too injury prone and not good value. A shame really as when he's on, he makes a huge difference.

EOC mentioned in his preview that we needed to start the game quickly and we certainly hit the ground running this week! Losing Gaskell early on could have potentially derailed our game plan but we took a commanding lead early on and never looked like losing this one. I felt Lilley, Appo, Souter, Fulton and Holmes played well and combined for some nice scores. Their big boys seemed to struggle in the heat and defended very poorly for some of the scores (Davies and Souter's tries in particular).

The second half of the match was relatively uneventful compared to the explosive start. We focused on maintaining possession and controlling the tempo of the game but also squandered a number of changes to put ourselves even further ahead and claw back some of the points difference. While the pace slowed down, our defense remained strong, preventing Doncaster from mounting any significant comeback. The result was never in doubt, and the team managed to keep the scoreboard ticking over with 2 second half tries.

With this victory, we now turn our attention to the upcoming match against Dewsbury who are 1 win out of 12 and who are conceding an average of 34 points a game. Despite their position at the bottom of the table, we cannot afford to be complacent. Our focus will be on maintaining the momentum from this game and go on to 6 wins out of 7 before we head to France to face Toulouse.

Dewsbury will lift their game for Bradford but we really should still have enough to get the points even on an ordinary performance.

Toulouse will then be a massive test for our team, if we want to challenge for top 3 we are going to have to win some tricky games having dropped points against lesser placed sides already.

Thought we were never in danger of losing the game, we seemed to be up for it. Shame about Gaskell going off so early in the game. I thought the young ref had a game better than some of the more experienced refs and he could be one for the future.

Sounds like a professional job well done.

I don't see how there can be complaints around the second half, when it sounds like we've executed some good game management and seen it out.

Push on for 60 points and you're in danger of giving a few cheap tries away and suddenly it's a contest again.

This is the way EoC wants us to play too once infront I would suggest!

Very good result, especially with two top 6 teams losing this week.

We lost our key play-maker in the first minute and had 3 of our main props out.

We should comfortbly beat Dewsbury next week. I'd put McGowan back at FB and Holmes at HB. Gutted for Gaskell. He's such an important player for us.

So are we allowed to call him Garibaldi Gaskell or what?

TBH I was surprised he played so many games for us last season without getting a knock. Hopefully this latest one isn't as bad as the last.

My concern was that Doncaster finished MUCH stronger than we did. We were either out of gas or had put the cue on the rack instead of pressing on

I didn't see the game unfortunately, but it can't have been that much stronger because they only scored a solitary try!

Think it was more luck than good management we weren't ever going to lose it but set for set they made way more metres, had way better line speed than us in the final 20 and looked to have far more energy.

Their execution in our 20 was thankfully poor though and probably bombed 8 points by throwing the ball into touch.