BRADFORD Bulls media manager Luke Hopkins spoke with Ross Peltier this week. The prop discussed John Kear's influence on the club, as well as the Odsal side's abundance of homegrown talent.

Q: You were part of the Bulls side which got relegated to League One last season, so how different are things at the club this time around?

A: It’s a lot more positive with John Kear coming in. They were bad times last year going down to League One, but we’re back on a roll and everything about the club right now feels positive, so we are certainly on the rise again.

Q: Just how far can this group of players go?

A: I think we can go very far, certainly into the Championship and we can provide very stiff competition for the other teams.

If you look at a lot of sides who go up from League One, they often have a lot of experience coming from an older squad.

At Bradford we have so much talent coming from our academy. Players like Ethan Ryan, Brandon Pickersgill, Liam Kirk, Ross Oakes and I came through the Bradford system.

We have so much talent which is homegrown so I can see in the years to come that we can have a very successful phase.

Q: Looking forward to tomorrow against York, it’s being billed as the crunch match, whoever wins takes a giant step towards the title, do you agree with that idea?

A: I wouldn’t say it’s the crunch match, but it is a very big game. It will give a strong indication to who will take that number one spot.

We faced York in the opening round of the season and won with the last kick of the game. A lot of people said a draw would have been a fair result but the boys didn’t listen, kept going and we got the win.

If we get the win tomorrow, it puts all the pressure on them to come and catch us in that top spot.

Q: Are you and the team surprised that York have kept the pressure on us, while other sides who looked like early contenders have fallen away?

A: No not really. I’ve played in League One before and I know their manager James Ford really well and quite a lot of the lads who play for them. It’s no surprise really that York have stuck with us and are fighting hard.

Last season they came close but in the end missed out on promotion. To bring up the first game again, we knew going into it that York would be our biggest challengers and so I’m not shocked that they’re still in the mix.

Q: Is this match the last major hurdle of the season, or would that be a dangerous mind-set?

A: Definitely it would be dangerous to have that kind of mind-set. We still have the likes of Workington to face who are the only side that beat us this season.

There’s Whitehaven as well who pushed us close at their place so we can’t relax. But if we beat York, we have that four point cushion.