BULLS head coach Mark Dunning felt his side "tried too hard" in their 20-6 defeat to York at Odsal yesterday, insisting they have to be smarter.

Bradford have still only won once at Odsal in the league all season, and in a tight contest, conceding soft second-half tries made the difference.

Dunning conceded: "I don't think it fell away at the end, but the longer the game went on, the players seemed to try too hard, rather than being patient.

"The drop off after 55 minutes didn't happen this week, we saw the last York attack, we scrambled to stop them scoring, and then scored ourselves in the last set.

"But expressing ourselves, we have to be more smart and be happy to build pressure and ask questions."

He added: "There were three or four incidents where York took their opportunities when we didn't with ours.

"Credit to York for taking advantage, but we've got to do better than gifting points away."

On those individual errors, Dunning said: "We're a group, and as staff and players, nobody will get thrown under the bus.

"There were uncharacteristic errors from people that don't make them on a week to week basis. The endeavour was there and the attempt to play, but it was a bit rushed and dumb in areas.

"We'll stick together, and keep working hard, but we can't fix everything in two weeks.

"One thing the Bradford people want to see is a group of players that care and put their bodies on the line and I think for large parts of the game they saw that."

Asked if it was hard to head coach knowing he only has a short audition process, Dunning admitted: "It's difficult, but it's not about me, it can't be, it's about the club.

"It's difficult to implement change at any point within the season, and we're trying to do it as quickly as we can, while making it structured.

"I think anybody who watched this game would have seen a massive improvement on previous weeks and hopefully we can get more time to implement more change, but that's down to the people above."

Full-back Elliot Kear made a couple of bad errors before the break, but asked if that was behind him switching positions with winger Elliot Hall in the second half, Dunning insisted: "It was something we'd planned to do all along.

"Elliot Hall is enthusiastic and infectious. There was a reason why he started on the wing and it worked in the first half.

"But when York went down to 12 men, we saw an opportunity for his running game to be prominent from full-back.

"In the end he scored a try so we did get a bit of joy from that switch."

Dunning admitted that George Flanagan's thumb is still a little tender, which is why he wasn't risked for the game.

He confirmed that AJ Wallace had just gone off with cramp, but Chester Butler picked up a nasty-looking sternum injury.

Dunning said that Butler would be going for an x-ray, though he hopes it is just bruising and that the second-row will be fit to play against Newcastle on Saturday after a painkilling injection.

Sam Hallas also spent time off the field after an early yellow card for a high shot on Jacob Ogden, coming moments after the same two players had squared up.

Dunning insisted: "I think it was one of those, I don't even think it was frustration, he just came out of the line with a lot of intent and he's looked to put a big shot on.

"I'll have to look back on the video to see what the offence was, and if the officials got it wrong.

"That's the way Sam plays, with enthusiasm and tenacity, and we're never going to stop him doing that."