Morrison is relishing the challenge from former club Bulls

The Australian, who scored 19 tries in 50 Super League games for Bradford from 2007 to 2009, knows how challenging they will be given Jimmy Lowes’s side have lost just once since relegation.

Bulls’ 32-19 Good Friday victory over derby rivals Halifax was their seventh successive win but Dewsbury are in good form, too.

They came out on top of their Heavy Woollen battle with Batley Bulldogs 21-6 at Mount Pleasant to move up to fourth in the Championship.

“Bradford are a strong side, they are full-time and have quality players,” said Morrison, their opponents ready to give a debut to former Hull KR back-row Dave Petersen.

“We stepped up (against Batley) but we were still not at our best and need to improve.

“We will need to be on our A game to beat Bradford but they are coming to our pitch and have been in a tough battle against Halifax.”

On Friday, Dewsbury responded well after a disappointing 
38-28 defeat to Featherstone Rovers the previous week,

That had prompted some frank exchanges from Morrison with his squad and he was pleased with their reaction at Batley.

“We have got the talent in the team to win, but we need to hang onto the ball,” he said.

“I was pretty blunt and honest with the players during the week and we didn’t want to sugar-coat things.

“But they sat there and took it on the chin and have fixed it up.

“They completed at 76 per cent on Friday which is a lot better than 60 per cent and they have shown what they can do.

“We still have things we can work on and there are some penalties creeping into our game but defensively we have shown when we don’t have to do much of it, we are pretty strong.

“Local derbies are about digging deep and we did that, so I’m very proud of them.

“We rotated Matty Wildie and Tom Hemingway between the nine role and I thought they interchanged pretty well and overall it was a job well done.

“Now we have to concentrate on the Bulls.”

Batley, meanwhile, face the long trip to London Broncos this afternoon with coach John Kear promising changes after their tepid showing against Dewsbury.

“I’m going to find out the reason why we were so poor,” he said.

“The biggest disappointment for me was our online defence. They defended set after set on their line but we looked as though we couldn’t defend two sets and that is a concern for me.

“Everybody has got a short turnaround and we have to focus on fixing what we have done wrong in a very short time.

“I’ve got to pick a team who want to go out there and defend for each other as a priority,

“We should have 21 or 22 players to select for but there has got to be changes after that (Dewsbury) because that wasn’t good enough.”

Finally, Halifax host Hunslet Hawks as they seek to make an immediate response of their own.