Bulls chairman Chris Caisley has launched a stunning attack on the Great Britain management in the wake of their 42-6 Tri-Series hammering by Australia.

Caisley, who is also the chairman of Super League Europe, watched on in disbelief as the world champions powered away in the second-half to inflict the highest ever defeat on a British side Down Under.

"What angers me is that the critics will no doubt use this as another opportunity to have a go at the standard of Super League," he blasted.

"In fact the standard of our competition has continued to rise and I just can't accept that the players we had on show out there could not have put up a much better performance than that.

"Players of the quality of Gary Connolly, Jason Robinson, Andy Farrell, Iestyn Harris and Kris Radlinski are all capable of more than holding their own in the NRL.

"Man for man we were very well matched and yet they put 40 points past us.

"I'm afraid the finger has to be pointed at the British management. There just did not seem to be any organisation out there and the tackling was pretty awful which was surprising because Wigan were very competitive in that regard last season.

"The players have never had as much preparation time for a series but it certainly didn't look that way on the field and I feel the coaching staff and the rest of the management have to take the blame for it."

Caisley firmly believes the British game has continued to close the gap on their Aussie counterparts but says yesterday's result means the national side must go "back to the drawing board."

He added: "At Bradford we have produced young players of the quality of Leon Pryce, Paul Deacon and Stuart Fielden and there are others like them at other clubs. I certainly don't think the Aussies are producing anything better yet we continue to struggle against them.

"I have spoken with our coach Matthew Elliott at length about this and he says he would relish the opportunity of taking the current crop of British players into battle against the Aussies at the moment.

"They are going through a transitional stage and we should have done an awful lot better. It just wasn't good enough."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.