Bradford Bulls suffer again but Kurt Haggerty sees hopes for recovery
KURT HAGGERTY admitted his Bradford Bulls team produced a game of two halves as they suffered a heavy home defeat at the hands of St Helens.
A Phoenix Steinwede try for the home side helped put them 10-2 ahead before Saints took control of the match.
Tries from Jacob Douglas and Curtis Sironen gave them the lead at the break before 28 unanswered points saw them stamp their authority all over the home side in a dominant 40-10 victory.
Scores from Jack Welsby, with two, Joe Shorrocks and Jackson Hastings put St Helens firmly in the driving seat.
It meant a third straight defeat for Bradford, who remain in 11th place in their first year back since returning to the top flight.
It was a first visit by Saints to Odsal since 2014 and marked a welcome return of the fixture after Bradford’s period away.
But Haggerty was left with little to smile about, despite his team offering hope with a solid first-half performance.
"Ultimately we conceded 28 points in the second half and you’re never going to win games in Super League when you concede that many points,” said Haggerty.
"There were green shoots in the first half but we were very poor after the break.
"The inconsistency in halves is getting us at the moment. We’re nearly at round 17 and I think the intensity of Super League is catching up with us a little bit and we’ve just spoken in the changing room about attacking the next 10-11 games.
"We can’t feel sorry for ourselves and we won’t let them feel sorry for theirselves so we’ve got to learn and we’ve got to keep scrapping.
"It’s very hard at the moment, but there’s still a lot of positives to take from it.
"We’ve shown we can go set-to-set with a big club, so they are the green shoots for us, knowing that we can keep playing our style of rugby while also showing we can go toe-to-toe as well.”