THE Bulls are targeting another half-dozen recruits if they are promoted to Super League.

Dan Fleming’s return to the club last week means that John Kear currently has 22 under contract for 2021 – but he is ready to beef up the numbers should Bradford get the nod in the six-team race for the spare place in the top flight.

The Bulls confirmed their application ahead of Monday’s deadline and are now sitting tight to hear the verdict of the seven-man panel.

A decision on who will be selected to replace Toronto Wolfpack is expected in a fortnight.

If the Bulls are given the green light to return to Super League after a seven-year absence, Kear will get busy again on the recruitment front.

Chief executive Mark Sawyer says Bulls fans could expect to see more Super League-ready additions.

He said: “John has been in the discussions on moving forward and we’ve asked his opinions on whether we should throw our hat in for going to Super League.

“He’s been asked how many more players we would need in terms of numbers for beefing up the squad.

“He thinks we’d have to bring in five or six quality players to boost the numbers. So, you are probably looking at a squad of 27 or 28.

“With his knowledge, he obviously knows who might be available. But obviously we can’t do anything until we know.”

Whichever club is nominated to go up, they will face a race against the clock to recruit the best players still in the market. They will also be given a reduced central funding of £1 million, spread out over the full year.

“The big question with the application is obviously how competitive we realistically can be,” added Sawyer.

“We’d give it as good a go as we can if we go up and you never know.

“But we’re not saying we’d go to Super League and definitely win enough matches to stay up. That would be silly talk.

“At the same time, we’d make every effort to ensure we’d be as competitive as possible.”

The Bulls are hoping plans to bring stock car racing back to Odsal from next Easter will be ratified at tomorrow’s RFL board meeting.

As the momentum to get back to the stadium builds, the club have asked for the rateable value to be reviewed because it was based on Super League income.

Sawyer also admitted that moving to Dewsbury did the Bulls a favour during the COVID crisis.

He said: “Bradford didn’t have the expense of being based in the stadium which couldn’t be used. Things turned out much better because of that. Having the relatively smaller running costs for 12 months has made a massive difference.”