MARK Dunning may be forced to delve deeper into the academy to help raise a side for the Bulls’ Championship finale.

Injuries to Myles Lawford, Samy Kibula and Chester Butler in the loss at Batley have stretched resources to the absolute limit.

Dunning must patch together a team for John Kear’s Odsal return with Widnes on Sunday - and that could mean turning to more untried youngsters.

He said: “We took a reserve team up to Newcastle on Saturday and picked up a couple of injuries there.

“I think there’s only one from that group who’s a senior player and could come in. Then we had an 18th and 19th man on Sunday.

“Fingers crossed, we might be able to put 16-17 senior players together.

“If that doesn’t happen, I think we’ll be up to squad number 46 and another debutant from our striving youth system.

“They’re not the circumstances you want. Everything is earned and the guys that have played so far have earned that right and not let us down one bit.

“If we have to do it this week, it will be out of necessity.

“I know whichever one of the young blokes or however many have to come in won’t let us down. They’ll fight for the cause until the end.

“But I sure as hell wouldn’t like to be in this position if we didn’t have the youth system we’ve got. I really don’t know where we’d be as a club then.”

The Bulls faced the second half at Mount Pleasant with only one fit interchange. Dunning praised George Flanagan for playing through the pain barrier after his thumb injury had flared up again.

“Fair play to George, I think he did about 70 minutes,” he added.

“At half-time he was getting an injection into a thumb injury. At any other time I would have told him, not asked him but told him, to come off.

“But we’re staring down the barrel of having (only) 13 (players) and that’s all we could go with.

“He took one for the cause. That just typifies George and his fighting spirit and his attitude towards this club and what it means to him.”

Lawford’s collarbone injury was a particularly cruel blow after Dunning had taken the teenage half-back out of the firing line the previous week at Halifax to protect him.

The Bulls coach admitted: “I feel bitterly sorry for Myles. Last week he was adamant he'd be all right and would have a pain-killing injection.

“As you know, I told him that wasn’t going to happen on my watch.

“He’s done everything that’s been asked of him in the rehab department and worked really hard with the physios, coming in on extra days to get himself in a position to be able to play.

“Then it looks like he’s broken the collarbone on the other side.

“We can’t even say we pushed him too hard and he wasn’t ready. We didn’t, we took real care of him and made sure he was fine.

“But he’s got a bad one on the other side by the look of it.”

The Bulls are limping over the line after a wretched season but Dunning insists they will be aiming to finish on a high.

“It’s about doing whatever we can to represent this club. We’re going into a league fixture for one last time in 2022 and we'll do whatever we can.”