BETFRED League One leaders Bradford Bulls face a hooking crisis ahead of their potentially tricky match at Whitehaven on Sunday.

Already missing George Flanagan with a broken hand and unable to recall Reiss Butterworth from his loan spell with Batley Bulldogs, John Kear's side lost Sam Hallas with a 'dead leg' during their 50-12 home victory over North Wales Crusaders on Saturday.

Kear admitted after the nine-try victory: "My biggest concern now is the hooking role because we had four hookers who we felt could play at this level (Reiss Butterworth, Sam Hallas, Vila Halafihi and George Flanagan) and now we are down to one (Halafihi), and that is down to me.

"I sent Reiss Butterworth out on loan to Batley but we have picked up injuries to George Flanagan and Sam Hallas pretty quickly, so that is something that we will have to address this week.

"We cannot recall Reiss as his loan has to be for a minimum of a month and he has another week to go. If we could recall him, we would."

That apart, the other chief worry for the Bulls were injuries to interchanges Gregg McNally, who returned off the bench for the first time since early April, and Mikey Wood.

Kear said: "It is the worst part of the season to pick up injuries because it is week-in, week-out stuff now right the way through to the end.

"Sam Hallas didn't reappear after picking up a 'dead leg', Mikey Wood's knee buckled underneath him so we brought him off, and Gregg McNally felt a tightness in his (quad) injury and we pulled him off as a precaution. He will have a scan so it was a pretty heavy cost injury wise."

However, the experienced coach was generally happy with the result, apart from a 15-minute spell in which they conceded two tries.

Kear said: "I am pleased with the result. If somebody had said beforehand you would beat North Wales by 38 points, I would have taken that because they are a half-decent team.

"But we played ourselves into a position to have a really outstanding performance when it went to 40-0 and then lost concentration and allowed North Wales to come into it.

"They scored two tries in consecutive sets, and it looked like a third one was on the board but it was ruled out for a forward pass.

"It is an area that we must address and make sure that it doesn't happen again, but that was the only disappointing thing about the performance."

One comfort for Kear was the return of Joe Keyes at stand-off after he had missed four matches with a back injury.

The former Paris St Germain, Huddersfield, Sheffield Eagles, Hull, Wakefield and Batley coach said: "I was pleased with Joe.

"He looked a little rusty at times but that's to be expected as you cannot come in with that match sharpness that he had previously but he got through it well, which is a bonus for us."

Kear added: "I thought Matt Garside was a deserved winner of the man of the match award and the middle generally was good.

"Ross Peltier concentrated really well and there were no errors from him, which was a little target that he had set himself and which we all buy into, but those injuries in that 15-minute period put a bit of a dampener on things."