Francis Cummins is demanding an improvement from his players as the Bulls seek to defy the odds and topple champions Wigan today.

Cummins could not hide his frustration after his men were thumped by Leeds on Thursday and another tough test now awaits at the DW Stadium.

The Bulls are down to the bare bones after Adam Sidlow (back), James Donaldson (ankle) and Matty Blythe (knee) were injured against the Rhinos and Dale Ferguson also picked up a knock and will be missing today.

They join a list of absentees including Matt Diskin, Luke George and Jamie Foster, so today’s squad will see a number of teenagers feature and Adam Brook and Sam Bates are in line for possible first-team debuts.

Despite the absence of so many key men, Cummins said: “What I can hope for and what I can demand is that we turn up and perform because we’ve got to be better than we are at the moment.

“We are selling ourselves short. We got ourselves out of a tough situation at the start of the game on Thursday and finally got some decent field position.

“But somebody then tries to go and throw a ball or overplays and the top teams like Leeds punish you.”

The Bulls memorably won at Wigan against all the odds in 2012 at the height of the club’s financial crisis and came agonisingly close to taking the spoils last season.

Cummins added: “A lot of stuff has gone under the bridge since then and we have just got to get back to basics.

“I’d be happy if we just got a fair share of the ball and we didn’t overplay but at the moment we’re not producing enough quality in attack or defence.

“Like I say, we have to recover from our errors quicker and we must improve in every department.”