GEOFF Toovey refused to blame Johnny Campbell's first-half red card as the Bulls lurched to their latest defeat against Swinton.

The winger was sent off after just 25 minutes for an alleged spear tackle on Mike Butt.

That left the home side playing nearly three quarters of the game with a man down against their fellow strugglers.

Toovey did not hide behind the dismissal as the reason for a 16-6 loss, which leaves them 11 points adrift at the bottom of the Championship ahead of the Qualifiers.

Yet he did question the consistency of the officials – and referee Greg Dolan was booed off by the Odsal crowd.

Toovey said: "I've seen many, many of those instances this year at this level. Sometimes they don't even get a penalty.

"A few months ago I broached it with the judiciary when a bloke was tipped on his head and they gave the player a warning letter. They didn't even give a penalty.

"That's the frustrating thing about the consistency of the decisions here. But we were still in the match at 6-6 – it was there to have and we couldn't make a fist of it and get on with the job.

"We didn't take those opportunities when they presented themselves."

The Bulls gave a debut to Aussie centre Willie Tonga after his clearance finally came through on Saturday evening. But they have now won only once in the last 14 games to finish the regular campaign still on zero points.

Toovey said: "It's been with us all year. We just lack genuine consistency in our play.

"Even when we got back in the match after a horrible start, we should have gone on from there. But we didn't have the character to do that.

"It was a must-win game for us just to get our season back on track before this last seven games. We just let it slip through our fingers.

"It's our own fault. We gave away some sloppy penalties and there were some 50-50 calls that seem to go against us quite often.

"That's the troubling bit. But the game was there to be had at 6-6 and we didn't grab it – that's the big disappointment for me and the players. They had an opportunity to win with 12 men.

"I suppose we had a pretty bad week. We didn't find out until Saturday that Willie was going to play and Joe Keyes had a bad back. I probably shouldn't have played him because he was a bit of a passenger out there.

"Then obviously the sending off after 15 minutes to our winger, it was very hard to replace that."

Former Kangaroos international Tonga showed glimpses of his talent but he did not see enough of the ball to really hurt Swinton.

Toovey said: "Because we had to reshuffle the back with the sending off and Keyesy having a bad back, that limited the amount of ball we got over that side. That was a bit restrictive."

Ross Peltier's return from an ankle injury was cut short when he was forced to hobble off with a recurrence of the problem.