BRADFORD Bulls captain Michael Lawrence has admitted that his side didn’t once hit the panic button in their thrilling victory over French outfit Toulouse on Saturday.

Like Mark Dunning, Bulls’ lead man believes that the days of Bradford rolling over after a small dosage of adversity, are well and truly in the past.

The Odsal side went 18-8 down after being reduced to 12 men following a sinbin situation in the second half, but Lawrence confessed that his side didn’t ever feel the game was over.

He said: “There was zero panic. As I say, it’s a totally different team this season. When I first spoke to the club and Brian Noble, I spoke about coming in and changing the culture of the club and team, which is one that works hard, believes in the process and a team that sticks together.”

Lawrence signalled out praise for the work of one particular individual, saying: “We were never really worried during the Toulouse game and a lot of that comes down to the work we’ve put in on the training field. We worked extremely hard in the off-season to rectify a few of the team’s previous downfalls. At the end of last season, I’m aware that fitness was an area highlighted by the club as not being good enough. So, full credit has to go to Kane Daniels (Head of Strength and Conditioning) with that because he had us working tirelessly. It was very tough, but we are now in the shape to compete for the full 80 minutes every single week. We were never once beaten on Saturday.”

Lawrence added: “We faced a lot of adversity against Toulouse, even before the game had kicked off. I think that’s what impressed me the most about the performance. We had players with a dual registration pull out of the team, we had players injured and sick and we lost Bodene (Thompson) and Masi (Matongo) the week before. However, there’s no moaning, there’s no excuses and we show up and do this badge proud. Every game this season, you will see 100% effort from all the boys and as long as we do that, we will continue to pick up plenty more wins as the season goes on.”

It's three wins out of four for Bradford in the Betfred Championship now and their slip up at York is slowly becoming a distant memory with Dunning’s men picking up two fine victories against Widnes and Toulouse. With his side moving away from that defeat at York, Lawrence feels that the fixture could have some positive ramifications going forward.

He said: “The York disappointment is behind us now. However, I do think the defeat was good for us, perhaps a blessing in disguise, because it highlighted some areas that we needed to work on, and it also highlighted what can happen when you turn up to a game a little bit unprepared and without the right mentality to do the hard work. These last two performances, everybody has worked extremely hard, and that hard work is something you can base your season off. We can move forward from setting those foundations.

“We were delighted to move on from the York defeat and pick up victories in the next two games. I think we’ve made a real statement. We made sure that we went with two real good performances in back-to-back games after slipping up. All week in the lead up to Toulouse, we focussed on making sure the performance was at the right level because we know that we can turn anyone over on our day. We did exactly that and every player from one to seventeen can hold their head high.”

It had been a torrid record of late for Bradford and the rest of the Betfred Championship when facing Toulouse, with the French side’s last regular season defeat in the Championship coming in 2019 before Saturday’s outing, which was also against Bradford. Not only that, the Odsal side last claimed victory at home to Toulouse six whole years ago in 2017. The astounding record was something that Lawrence wasn’t fully aware of ahead of matchday.

He admitted: “It wasn’t till the day of the game that I found out Bradford’s recent home record against Toulouse; the last time they did beat them at home was in 2017 I believe. So, it’s a huge victory in that respect. At the start of the season, we spoke about this being a new era. It’s a new Bradford Bulls, it’s not the Bradford Bulls of the last two or three seasons and because of that we want to make some new history. So far, so good and we want to continue in this vein of form, but we need to continue taking each game as it comes.”

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The feel-good factor is coming back to Bradford and Lawrence admitted that the experienced players are helping to improve the mentality within the dressing room.

He said: “Me and the other experienced boys are doing our best to help with that. We’ve got a lot of players who like to play an expansive game and score a lot of points, but sometimes you’ve just got to stick to the plan, trust the systems, your teammates and play with a cooler head, especially to get results in the tight games. The tight games at the end of the year against the best teams; they’re the games we want to be involved in. We are building, we are nowhere near the finished article and we want to keep improving on our performances. There is a real desire within the group to achieve that this season.”

Lawrence added: “To keep the high standards and consistency, it starts on Tuesday at training. As captain, it’s important that I keep everyone grounded and humble. I think after the Whitehaven game the guys got a little bit excited after getting a positive result, but it means nothing really. You can obviously celebrate after the game and enjoy your evening but when Tuesday comes, that game is forgotten about and you need to be focussing on the next. It’s a relentless process, but it’s key that you are in tune with it to ensure you find the right consistency. It can be hard to do but as one of the leaders, players like me and Bodene have a job to make sure the standards are maintained every week. No matter if we go on a run of five or six wins, we must stay level.”

All-in-all, being a leader is a job that Lawrence thrives off. He admitted : “It’s something that I enjoy and something that comes naturally to me. Whether I was appointed captain or not when I first came to the club, I’d still be just as vocal if I hadn’t been handed the captaincy. I would have still spoke up and shared my views regardless because it’s something that I’ve always done. But to be given the captaincy it’s a great honour because it’s such a famous club with a rich history, and I love leading the boys out every weekend, especially if you can get a victory like we did against Toulouse.”

Bradford face another massive task at Featherstone Rovers on Monday and Bradford’s captain echoed Dunning’s words post Toulouse game, stating that: “They’re definitely the best team in the division; I think their performances have shown that so far. Their squad is close to being of Super League standard because they’ve got great strength from player one to seventeen. It will be the biggest test of the season so far but we’ve had great preparation in the weeks leading up to this.”

Lawrence added: “We are confident, we are always confident, especially in this division. If you turn up with the right mentality every week you can beat anybody, so we’ll look at the video footage on Tuesday night and see what we’ve done well and what we can improve on, and then the focus will turn to Fev and making sure we go there to play the best game we possibly can.

“A victory would send a message out to say that we are serious contenders. If we can beat Widnes, Toulouse and Featherstone then people will start taking us seriously, but I’m not too concerned about the opinion from the outside. The belief within the group is massive but actions speak louder than words. So, we’ve got to go out there and do the business.”