THE Bulls won’t be going in blind for their first ever trip to Hemel Stags tomorrow, John Kear insisted.

After conquering Newcastle Thunder last week on the biggest pitch in the league, Bradford must now get to grips with one of the tightest surfaces.

Hemel’s Pennine Way home pitch is as compact as Workington – where the Bulls suffered their only League One defeat.

But Kear’s squad will head south well prepared to face a side who are yet to pick up a point this season.

The Bulls coach said: “The pitch is 19 metres by 61 – very similar to Workington. It’s a very small pitch which makes it difficult to play on.

“We have to adapt our gameplan and there will be a fair bit of adaptation when you look at the team we’ve selected and the tactics we use.

“We’ll prepare as thoroughly as we possibly can. That’s one of the reasons we know the dimensions.

“We’ve narrowed out and shortened our training field to try and replicate what we’re going to come up with.

“It’s going to be an early start but the travel, the size of the pitch, the different playing surfaces (after Newcastle Thunder’s 4G artificial one) – they are all part of the challenge but we’re happy to embrace it.”

With Joe Keyes still missing, the Bulls squad will have little experience of playing there before. Kear made one previous visit to the Hertfordshire outpost but not for a game.

He added: “I took a coaching course there in 1992 – so hopefully it’s changed a little since then. I can’t remember much about it, other than it was at Hemel Hempstead’s ground.

“It was an amateur team then, so I don’t know how much it has changed. They’ve got a grandstand now, but not a very big one.”

Hemel’s 90-0 thrashing at York City Knights last week allowed the Knights to leapfrog the Bulls once again at the League One summit.

The Bulls recently posted a club record 124-0 win over West Wales in the wake of another history-making score from their promotion rivals and will be expected to follow suit.

Kear said: “We seem to be following York. It would be nice to have a week or two when we don’t.

“But the fixtures are as they are and York once again posted a very impressive score.

“Our first concern is winning the game, as I’ve said before, and we’ll worry about by how many should we - or when we - post enough points to make it safe.”

The Bulls expect George Milton’s fractured eye socket will keep him out for between four and six weeks. But Kear is not short of options.

He is hoping to see his team take more care in possession after an unusually large error count in last week’s win over the Thunder.

“If our error count is anything like it was last week, we certainly won’t get anywhere near the York score.

“You can’t make as many errors as we made to give the opposition all the ball.

“Newcastle had much more ball than we had - and we won the penalty count. So, the reason they had the ball that much is because we spilled it so many times, especially in our half.

“It’s something we’ve obviously got to rectify.

“I felt we were back on the horse defensively. But offensively, we were a fair way off.

“That performance with the ball may well have reflected the fact we hadn’t recovered since Easter.

“That’s why this nine-day turnaround has been immensely beneficial to us all.”