Steve McNamara admits the gloves were off during a brutally honest inquest into the Bulls’ recent struggles.

The Bradford boss took his players to task following last week’s 44-20 defeat at Crusaders, slamming performance levels and pointing the finger at several senior players.

In a bid to find swift answers, the coaching staff cancelled two scheduled days off earlier this week and ramped up the intensity in training ahead of this evening’s meeting with Warrington.

McNamara said: “We can all accept and understand defeats when we’ve invested a lot, physically and in terms of intensity.

“In the Leeds and Warrington games, we certainly did that. We fought, battled and worked really hard but unfortunately came out on the wrong end of both those results.

“We’ve had to be careful with our training programmes over a period of time, simply because of the numbers within the squad. But the gloves needed to come off this week and they certainly have done.

“When the players are competing very hard against most of the sides, we adjust training accordingly, but when we’re not performing at that intense level, we’ll adjust training accordingly as well.

“It’s not a sign of panic, it’s not a sign of anything other than the fact that as a staff and as a group of players there needs to be a recognition of that lack of intensity.”

The Bulls enter today’s Odsal clash on the back of four straight defeats but McNamara has been keen to distinguish the first two games in the sequence from the second pair.

Losses against Leeds and Warrington were suffered with pride intact but more recent reversals against Huddersfield and Crusaders contained few positives.

McNamara said: “There was a funny mix at the weekend. There were a lot of senior players not playing and there were a fair few young boys.

“But regardless of who’s out there for Bradford, we all understand the intensity that needs to be applied and I don’t think we’ve done that in the last two games.

“We certainly have needed to get that back into our training sessions, which we have done, and hopefully that’ll be reflected in the game at the weekend.”

Recent injury problems mean the Bulls have been forced to blood a number of their rookie squad members.

With Andy Lynch, Matt Orford, Jamie Langley and Michael Platt all sidelined last week, four of the match-day 17 were aged 20 or under.

Prop Steve Crossley made his debut from the bench, Joe Wardle was handed his first start at centre and Danny Addy was making only his third Super League appearance.

McNamara praised the contributions from all three but was concerned their elders did not set a better example.

He said: “I would not point the finger at any of those young players whatsoever. They all applied themselves very well and Joe in particular, with his first start, did a very good job.

“It was some of the more senior people within the group. That doesn’t mean all those people, because I think some still put in a super effort, but there were several who need to lift their level of performance.

“Some of our young players are getting some fantastic experience at this moment and we need to teach them what intensity levels are like at first-team level.

“Steve Crossley in particular hasn’t felt that because of what happened at the weekend but hopefully he’ll get the chance to experience it over the coming weeks.”