Bradford Bulls "naive" at York as Dan Smith loss no excuse

But for Bulls prop Dan Smith to suffer that fate moments before kick-off yesterday at York, in a season where his experience has proved vital in impressive Betfred Championship victories over Halifax, Featherstone and Toulouse, was exceptionally bad timing.

And without that vital cog in their machine, Bulls flopped badly up in North Yorkshire, losing 25-14 against a side who had yet to win a league game all season.

York are still bottom of the table on points difference, but they can be buoyed by this excellent win at the LNER Community Stadium, led by their only fit half back, Liam Harris, and superb full back Myles Harrison.

As for Bulls head coach Eamon O’Carroll, while he admitted there was a huge Smith-shaped hole left in their side by the prop’s late withdrawal, he refused to put any blame for the grim defeat down to that.

He told the T&A after the game: “You’ll always miss someone with Dan’s quality and everything he does for you.

“But that’s certainly no excuse, we’re not going to feel sorry for ourselves because we lost a couple of players (Chester Butler and Zac Fulton were also forced off during the game, with hip and head injuries respectively).

“We replaced Dan with Fenton Rogers and moved Eliot Peposhi on to the bench, so we were still in a strong position.

“We do miss Dan when he’s not there, he’s a big part of how we want to play.

“But sometimes these things happen and it’s good to see how this group reacts to that little bit of adversity.

“Everyone was quite happy to accept that it was just a case of the next available player coming in to replace Dan and that Dan’s roles and responsibilities would be theirs instead.

“Eliot played his part for us in the game, as did Fenton.”

O’Carroll was also asked if the game epitomised the competitive nature of the Championship, with a woefully out of form York able to deservedly beat a Bradford side full of confidence.

He admitted: “It’s something I was really conscious of during the week, as were the players.

“That’s something I can say, that our lads are humble and that their feet stay firmly on the ground, because we knew this was a dangerous game.

“If we lose a game doing what we’ve practiced and we get our intent right, I’m not happy, but I can have an element of calmness about it.

Bulls prop Eribe Doro tries to digest a difficult afternoon in York after the full-time whistle yesterday. (Image: Tom Pearson.)

“We missed some things off our checklist here that we’d normally do well, and we didn’t do well in those areas on this occasion.

“There was lots of effort in there, but some dumbness that really hurt us too.

“As the game went on, our individual effort levels probably went up, but so did the amount of catastrophic moments.

“We’ll look at that, but what this game as done has kept us humble.

“We know we have to be on it every single week, and that’s something we’re striving for.”

And with that being said, O’Carroll was quick to shoot down any suggestion that his side had been complacent, thinking they could walk all over winless York after back-to-back victories against last season’s top two.

He said: “It was naivety that we showed here, not complacency.

“Even dumbness is probably the wrong word to use, naivety is what I would say describes that performance best.”