BULLS winger Joe Brown has admitted his try-scoring drought was getting to him, but now that monkey is off his back, he is ready to help the side towards “something special” this season.

Despite becoming a regular in 2020, Brown failed to cross the whitewash in his six appearances, but finally broke his competitive duck in the defeat to Sheffield on Easter Sunday, before scoring two tries in last weekend’s win over Dewsbury.

He said: “It’s been massive for me to hit that recent streak. It was good to get that first competitive try to get that monkey off my back.

“It was on my mind that I didn’t score last year and I was wondering when it would come and getting frustrated.

“But I’ve got the opposite thought now. I’m really happy and ready to kick on and hopefully score more tries.”

One of those tries last week was particularly impressive, with Brown and his fellow winger David Foggin-Johnston running practically the length of the field between them to score.

Brown said: “Foggs has got plenty of experience behind him, so you know what you’re going to get from him. He’ll always do a job for you.

“My lungs were hoping Foggs would score it himself, but he gave it to me and I got there in the end. It was a nice all-round move given where he picked it up from.”

Now one of the first names on the teamsheet, Brown has come a long way from his inauspicious Bulls debut, a thumping at Barrow in the 1895 Cup back in 2019.

It will be Brown’s first return to Cumbria since when Bulls take on Whitehaven in the Championship this afternoon, and he warned: “It doesn’t matter where you go in Cumbria, it’s always tough to win there.

“Whitehaven play that wide pitch of theirs really well and we have to adapt.

“It will need to be an 80-minute performance and we have to be on point, as they have won every game they’ve played there so far this season.

“It would be a very good win for us.”

The prospect of a third victory in a row is a tantalising one, and was hard to imagine after the successive heavy defeats to Featherstone and Sheffield.

Brown admitted: “The mood was not good, let’s make no bones about it. There were some very tough meetings, harsh words and some truths had to be heard.

“It was not pretty watching both of those games back and we asked a lot of questions of ourselves.

“We’ve won two in a row now, but it’s a long season and we’ve done nothing special yet. But winning at Whitehaven would be a step in the right direction, hopefully towards something special.”

Brown is very likely to stay on the wing all afternoon today, which he will welcome after the difficulty of offering cover for the suspended Jordan Lilley in the halves against Featherstone and Sheffield.

He said: “It wasn’t ideal without Jordan. Him being banned meant we had to reshuffle and it didn’t quite work out.

“I’ve enjoyed being back in my natural position and focusing on what I can do.”