LEIGH Beattie surveyed the wreckage of the Bulls' ten-try 56-12 home defeat to London Broncos and admitted: "It is one step forward and four steps back."

In front of their season's lowest Championship crowd of 3,633, the interim head coach – who has been part of the fixture and fittings at Odsal for two decades – said: "Without doubt, this is the toughest situation I have known here in all that time.

"We are very much lacking in confidence and we have worked on defence. I know it didn't look like it but we have but we were not good enough.

"It is like a rollercoaster. One minute we are all right and then heads go down. It is like the whole world is on top of us and it just caves (in).

"As much as we try and put in the effort, nothing seems to go right – but we need to be better."

Beattie, whose side have now lost five straight league matches and conceded 234 points in that time, did not put his side's defeat to the fourth-placed Broncos down to a lack of physicality or a lack of leadership.

Yet he did say: "I am not sure how much it is down to not having a consistent side – I can't put my finger on it – but London are a very good side and we just got things wrong.

"Everyone knows that we have injuries and we were down to the bare bones."

Adding to the problem, Leon Pryce went off with a knee injury just before half-time and Beattie added: "We had a hooker playing in the centres (Vila Halafihi) because Josh Rickett did his ankle on Saturday – he would have started in the centres – in training. That is where we are.

"I feel for the fans who turn up week in, week out and I know that they are getting frustrated like us all. But we have just got to stick together – fans, board, coaches, players – and we hope that the fans stay with us and we can work it out together."