Kear: Mad May perfect prep for tough run to come

The head coach believes a run of tough fixtures over the last month provides perfect preparation for another set of difficult games to come over the next few weeks.

Bulls have a trip to Leigh Centurions to contend with tomorrow, which is then followed by ties against Halifax, Widnes and Toulouse.

Kear said: “I think in all honesty; we’ve had the best preparation possible.

“When you’ve played Toronto away, Leeds at home, Halifax in the Summer Bash, Featherstone away and then Halifax at home in the cup.

“I think that’s pretty solid preparation for some tough games that are coming up.

“So, we feel as if we’re in a decent place. We’re looking forward to it.

“I feel if we defend how we defended at the weekend we’ll certainly give ourselves every opportunity.”

In truth, the results during a tough and congested May were far from desirable, losing all three league games in the month.

But, Bulls got back to winning ways last weekend against Batley Bulldogs and Kear believes his side can show they mean business in the promotion chase throughout their next tough run.

He added: "The only game where we’ve been whacked and we weren’t in it was the Featherstone one which is obviously the most disappointing performance of the season.

“But every other game, and I include Toronto in that, we were in the game and competitive all the way through.

“If you give yourselves a chance of winning, you’re not going to win every time, but you might well win half of them.

“If we win half of the next four, I’ll be delighted.”

The first opportunity comes in Bulls' journey across the Pennines to face Leigh.

Kear's men won 26-12 in the home tie and the head coach declared it his side's second-best defensive performance, just behind the recent Batley game.

He said: “Because Leigh throw a lot at you attacking-wise, they’re a really difficult team to handle.

“They play very quick, they’ve got clever dummy-halves in Micky Hein and Liam Hudd and they’ve got some strike out wide.

“So they’re a handful basically, in every situation.

“I thought we defended really well at our place and we were very clinical which perhaps we weren’t against Batley last week.

“We were very clinical and took all our chances against them last time.

“It will have to be something similar for us to be successful, but I’m confident we can be successful.”

Leigh will be boosted by the arrival of Jordan Thompson from Super League Hull FC.

Kear admits it's another obstacle to overcome, but not one that is insurmountable.

He said: "Jordan Thompson’s got over 100 Super League appearances, so he’s not going to make them any worse.

“He’s going to add to the quality that they’ve got there, so we know it will be a tough old ask. But, all the games are tough old asks.

“We’re at the right end of the table, we’re challenging for the right things, which is a play-off place.

“In order to achieve what we want to achieve you’re going to have to overcame obstacles like we’re being presented with and hopefully we can do.”