THE Bulls must be on their guard against a Leon Pryce “ambush” in Cumbria tomorrow.

John Kear’s side take League One’s only unbeaten record to Workington for a reunion with former Odsal legend Pryce.

His Town team lay in wait on the tightest playing area in the competition – and Kear is well aware of the potential pitfalls.

“It’s a different type of challenge,” said the Bulls coach. “The pitch is 90 metres by 60 metres, which is the smallest and narrowest in the league.

“That’s got to affect how we will approach it.

“You can’t play the same game you do at Odsal where it’s nice and wide. You have to adapt and amend but I feel we’re pretty good at doing that.

“I think it will be more emotional for Leon when he comes back to Odsal. He’ll see this one as his ambush opportunity by getting us up to Cumbria and beating us.

“We’ve got to be on our guard to prevent that. But we know it’s going to be a hell of a challenge because of the logistics of the travel up there, the size of the pitch and toughness of the opposition.”

Pryce has won two of his four league games at the Workington helm in his first season as a coach. Kear reckons he will be finding his new role very different after a decorated playing career.

He added: “You face the challenge of learning a new job.

“Leon has been very privileged because of his ability to be a full-time athlete from the age of 16.

“These guys are working at Sellafield, being postmen, digging the roads and doing whatever.

“What you’ve got to do is manage their lifestyle along with your requirements for preparing a rugby league team. It’s a tough ask.

“You learn a great deal in the first year when you’re dealing with part-time players. Obviously, Leon is undertaking that learning curve at the minute.

“The plus point for him is that he’s worked under some great coaches. I’m sure he will have gleaned the good points from them and may also have felt at times ‘well, I wouldn’t do that in that situation.’

“He will be pretty rounded in how he approaches the game.

“But when I went from a full-time to part-time environment, I felt the biggest difficulty was prioritising what to do.

“You wanted to do everything but you didn’t have time to do it all.”

Workington lost to a late try in the Good Friday derby at Whitehaven and also ran London Broncos close in the Challenge Cup.

Kear said: “London were flying high and undefeated in the Championship at that time and went up to Cumbria but Workington almost got them.

“Leon’s obviously the coach and they’ve got Ryan Bailey and Sean Penkywicz who are not your ordinary Cumbrian lads. But I’d say three-quarters of the team are local.

“That tribalism will shine through and they will be after us.

“They will be pumped up because it’s Bradford and be feeling hard done to because of the nature of that loss on Good Friday.”