JORDAN Lilley remains a major doubt for the weekend as the Bulls’ half-back woes continue.

Lilley is still battling to recover from the dead leg he suffered against Batley 12 days ago.

That forced him to miss the Widnes defeat and it is questionable if the on-loan Leeds man will be ready enough to face Leigh at Odsal on Sunday.

John Kear is preparing to go once more with the makeshift pairing of Matty Wildie and Elliot Minchella as the pivots. Joe Keyes, Dane Chisholm and Rowan Milnes are already ruled out.

Kear said: “There is very little change. Jordan Lilley is still a major doubt but he’s progressing.

“His dead leg was very severe and it’s a credit to him that he attempted to get back for last week. He’s doing his damnedest to play in this one as well.

“Whether this week’s a bit too early, we don’t know. But obviously Keyes, Milnes and Chisholm are all longer term (absentees).”

Wildie and Minchella have filled in gamely but Kear admits that using two players out of position in such a crucial area of the team is inevitably having an impact.

He added: “It’s not ideal. It doesn’t help the balance of the team but it is what it is.

“If you look at the Widnes game last week, we were beaten for field position.

“The reason for that is Danny Craven and Tom Gilmore are both established half-backs with very good kicking games.

“We’ve got two players who are doing a great job but they are not natural half-backs. They haven’t got the range of kick that Danny Craven had.

“There was one set I showed the players where we were really good defensively restricting their yardage. Then Craven put a 60 metre ‘boom’ in.

“We haven’t got anybody in our team at the minute who can kick the ball like that.

“I’m not saying we won’t when Jordan Lilley comes in and Rowan Milnes. But at this moment in time, we’ve got nobody with that length of kick.

“We’re having to try and find other ways of resolving that problem.”