THE Bulls are keeping their fingers crossed to avoid a latest half-back injury crisis after Jordan Lilley was forced off against Batley.

The 30-16 win at Odsal took John Kear’s side back into third place in the Championship but came at a potentially heavy price.

Lilley was one of three Bulls players taken to hospital after appearing to be in great discomfort with his ribs as he was helped from the pitch.

Aaron Murphy (head injury) and Brad England (poke in the eye) were also facing checks after a bruising encounter with the side who had been above them in the play-off race.

But it is the prospect of losing Lilley that will really concern Kear.

Joe Keyes made his short-term return to the club with an assured display to fill the big hole left by Danny Brough’s injury. But with his deal up in a week, the Bulls face ongoing uncertainty in the halves.

Kear said: “We obviously don’t know the full extent of the injuries. But it’s the same with every team.

“When you are looking at the number of injuries in the game, it might in part be that everybody had a year off.

“It’s a tough old game to play and I don’t think people give the players enough credit to week in, week out get belted and belt others.

“The number of collisions and the intensity is very high. I think we might need to look at that.”

Lilley did at least calm the initial fears when he took to Twitter late last night.

He said: "Thanks for the messages. Sore ribs but I'll be ok."

The Bulls bounced back after successive defeats and rattled off four tries in 12 minutes at the end of the first half.

Kear added: “Having two half backs was basically the difference from previous weeks.

“Joe Keyes is a good player, Jordan Lilley is becoming better week on week and we looked a better team with two half backs.

“They are used to organising and directing the team and they’ll challenge defences.

“They’ve both got a good kicking game so all of a sudden instead of just worrying about Jordan kicking the ball, they’ve got Joe Keyes as well. It becomes a different kettle of fish.

“It was an important win, not only from the performance side but we were playing the team just above us.

“I was really pleased with how the players approached the game. They were excellent in the first half and looked after the ball very well in difficult conditions.

“But then we tried to win the game again in the second half and invited Batley into our half – and they took full advantage.

“We’ve got lessons to learn. But if we could replicate the first-half performance over the whole game, we’ll be a half-decent team.”

Batley’s former Cougars coach Craig Lingard felt their display in the first 40 minutes was the worst of the season. But they scored three times after the break.

Kear, who enjoyed four successful years with the Bulldogs, said: “We knew we had to grind it because Batley are a physical team.

"The DNA of that club is that they never give up. You could hit them three times with a baseball bat and they’d still get up.”