PAUL Clough has admitted the Bulls must bridge the gulf in class between the Championship and Super League if they are to realise their promotion dream.

Jimmy Lowes’ side were way off the pace during last weekend’s thumping defeat at Wakefield and now face Salford on home soil tomorrow.

The Bulls have been playing against largely part-time teams in the Championship this season and Clough reckons it left them exposed against Wakefield.

“The standard we have been playing at all year isn’t the standard of Super League,” said the former St Helens prop.

“But it’s like anything in life, you adapt. When you’re exposed to something, you adapt or you die and that’s what’s going to happen now.

“We either get used to the pace of the game or we are going to get beaten every week.

“We’ve got to start playing at the level the Super League sides are playing at.

“It’s about doing it minute after minute, set after set, and week after week.

“You can’t just do it for five minutes and then do nothing for the remaining seventy five, which is unfortunately what happened last week.

“We did too much of the bad stuff and not enough of the good stuff.

“We’ve got to stay in the game because you make your own luck and that’s when opportunities come – by working hard – and hopefully we will reap the rewards of that.”

Marwan Koukash, whose wife Mandy made a failed attempt to buy the Bulls last year, has attracted some big-name players to Salford and they have won their opening two games in the middle eights.

Clough said: “They’re a team of superstars aren’t they? Koukash has gone out and got big players in.

“They’re a good club and Tim Sheens is obviously director of football, so they’ve got a quality set-up.

“But it’s not really about them – it’s about us because if we play like we did at Wakefield then we might as well be playing Blackbrook Royals amateurs because we would still lose.

“It’s just about starting well, doing the right things and playing for the full eighty minutes.

“We’re not a bad team and we’re not bad players, but these things happen in a season and it’s how you react to them which ultimately decide where you end up.

“If we kick on and win a few more games then people will say the Wakefield game was a turning point.”

The Bulls parted company with the top flight last season after a truly disastrous campaign which began the club ending administration and ended in relegation.

Clough, who had spent his entire career in Super League before joining the Bulls, admits he is desperate to get back there.

“It’s a massive goal and is probably where the club belongs, but by no means is it a right,” said the 27-year-old.

“You’ve got to earn it and in the past decade there has been a steady decline at Bradford.

“Some of that it the club’s fault, some of it the fault of people who aren’t here now, but there is no point standing here pointing fingers.

“It is what it is and you can’t change the past. It’s about what we can do for the club moving forward.”