John Davies eyeing Bradford Bulls return against Swinton

The wily back-rower was among the absentees in Sunday’s painful last-gasp loss to Widnes at Odsal.

Eamon O’Carroll hopes to have Davies in contention again for this weekend after a neck injury – and admitted they could have done with his presence to calm matters on the field during the fateful closing moments of last weekend’s game.

“He just gives us a bit of direction in doing what he needs to do,” said the Bulls head coach. “He’ll bark at a few people and they listen.

“We missed him and I’ll put Bruno (Michael Lawrence) and Dan Smith in that category as well.

“We probably missed them in that period when we needed to see the game out.”

Davies has made an immediate impact since his winter arrival after eight years at Featherstone. But he joined a lengthy injury list after suffering a neck problem in the previous defeat to York.

O’Carroll added: “He got a little bit of a crusher-type tackle and managed to see the game through. But he’s been struggling with it.

“He didn’t train at the beginning of last week. We got through to Thursday and he wanted to test it and came through okay.

“But, as is often normal with necks, you go home and wake up the next morning and it’s stiffened up and he was really struggling.

“You know if JD is putting his hand up and saying, ‘I’m no good (to play)’, then it is something real.

“But he looks a lot more comfortable now and hopefully we’ll have him back in contention for Swinton.”

The Bulls blew a seven-point lead in the final 10 minutes on Sunday and O’Carroll accused his makeshift line-up of lacking game management – something that Davies could have provided.

“I wouldn’t say we didn’t know what we were doing but maybe what we needed to do. We were trying but some of the things we were doing were crazy.

“When you have those senior players out there who have been there and done it before, someone will just say, ‘no, this is what we’re doing, let’s all get on board’ and that’s what everyone does.”