Pre-season has been tough test for Bradford Bulls (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Pre-season has been tough test for Bradford Bulls

6:10pm Friday 3rd February 2012 in Sport By Nick Scruton

Nick Scruton column

First of all I’d like to thank the T&A for giving me the opportunity to shake off my tag as team dunce!

Hopefully my column will showcase my journalistic skills, good humour and all-round intellect… who am I kidding there – but I’ll give it a bash anyway!

I’ll start with a quick round-up of pre-season, which I’m sure any of the players will tell you has been one of the toughest to date.

This year we swapped the sun, sea and sand of Lanzarote for a two-day RAF camp in the bleak woods of Linton-on-Ouse!

After a two-hour march with heavy back packs, we were abandoned in the wilderness with only three rabbits to feed 30 ravenous rugby players!

As you can imagine, some of the bigger boys struggled with this. Langers was caught eating his own shoe laces and Tom Burgess was spotted eating the bark off trees!

Although mentally and physically challenging, the team morale after the two days went through the roof and will stand us in good stead for the new season.

Even though the result against Hull FC was a disappointing way to finish our pre-season, there were plenty of positives to be taken from it.

Obviously it’s never good to lose but I’d prefer to get a result like that out of the way in a pre-season friendly.

We know the areas we need to improve on and, after a hard week’s training, I’m sure we can get the result against Catalan on Sunday that we need to kick-start our Super League campaign.

It was announced this week that Phil Joseph has been awarded a one-year contract with the Bulls. He’s a cracking lad and I’m absolutely chuffed for him. In fact, I think he’s been our form front-rower during pre-season.

I’d like to thank the fans in advance for their continued support, which is massively appreciated. Let’s hope 2012 will be the year of the Bulls.