THE pitch at Bradford Academy empties quickly as the Bulls players head off for a post-training coffee.

But not all the squad have hot-footed it in unison to the nearest branch of Costa.

One figure remains on the practice field, methodically lining up kicks from a variety of distances and angles.

Oscar Thomas is happy to stay behind and continue sharpening up his accuracy.

It’s a policy that is clearly paying dividends as the Sheffield game amply demonstrated.

Thomas landed a perfect eight-from-eight conversion rate, including one belter from the touchline.

“You have to put the hard work in,” he said about the voluntary extra work at training.

“It’s a speciality skill and the more you practise, hopefully the results will come.

“I learned it quite early, I’ve been kicking from 11-year-old. But it’s something I like to keep ticking over day in, day out.”

With 32 goals so far, Thomas is fourth in the Championship kicking chart behind tonight’s opposite number Steve Tyrer, Mark Kheirallah of Toulouse and the prolific Jamie Ellis at Hull KR.

The 100 per cent record against the Eagles was even more impressive considering he had sat out the previous three games with ligament damage in his big toe.

Jordan Lilley had filled in during his absence but was willing to step aside.

Thomas added: “He’s a good bloke and was happy to let me take them again.

“As long as I’m scoring them, I don’t think anyone’s going to argue. I just hope it carries on.

“It was good to be back out there. It does get frustrating after a while with the smallest injuries that tend to drag on.”

The big goal for Thomas now is to land the victory over Halifax tonight that will finally lift the Bulls out of the minus points. Then stage two of their campaign can begin.

“It’s good to keep going in the right direction,” he said. “We’ll all be pleased to get to zero and then we can look forward to what we want to do with the season.

“Right from the start, our first goal was to reach zero. Then we could start to plan again.

“Once we get there we can tick that off and then look ahead to the next stage and jump on to our next goal.

“Being a derby game, it would be good to get the win over Halifax – and it would be doubly sweet to reach zero.”