LEE Greenwood bemoaned Bradford Bulls’ sluggish start against Barrow Raiders on Monday night and admitted that it’s a problem he’s become all-too familiar with.

The Bulls fell to a 14-10 defeat under the Odsal lights after putting in a lacklustre display, despite the hosts having a great opportunity to firmly cement their place in the playoffs.

A Jorge Taufua sending off in the first half didn’t help the cause, but it was a pattern early in the game that had set the tempo for a poor evening for the Bulls.

Greenwood said: “No, obviously we didn’t plan for a performance like that. There was no indication in training ahead of the game that we were going to start like that.

“It’s really frustrating because it’s been a recurring theme of this year; we really struggle at the start of games where we don't seem to have prepared right, turned up right or been in the right frame of mind.

“It’s a challenge for us but me and Brian are up for the challenge, and we’ll do our best to make sure that it doesn’t happen again this season as we haven’t left ourselves with much wiggle room going forward now.”

Greenwood went on to question some squad members’ attitudes, saying: “It’s not an acceptable performance. I think some players have turned up thinking that the game was going to be different to what I and some others knew it was going to be, which was a challenge.

“We have some players, like every team does, who struggle to prepare and be ready to go and give that eight, nine or ten out of ten performance every week. That’s up to us to either change those players or unlock their potential.

“Once you’ve got a few individuals in your team that turn up like that, then it’s really hard to turn it around. I thought we did try in the second half when we went down to 12 men, and we could have actually won the game, but our start was so poor.

“We now need to look at that and see what we can do different to prepare.”

Ill-discipline was rife throughout Bradford’s performance as they conceded 17 penalties in the 80-minute contest, which Barrow capitalised on to strike five of those illegal challenges over the posts.

Of course, Taufua’s sending off, who allegedly bit Barrow’s captain, had catastrophic implications on how the evening would pan out, with Bradford already under the cosh with the powerful winger on the field.

Greenwood admitted: “It always is psychologically damaging because when you go down to 12-men you feel like you’re under the pump. If you’ve got a lead then you’ve got something to cling on to, but if you are losing like we were, then it can be really difficult. It certainly gave Barrow a man advantage but also a confidence boost for them to go on and win the game. Fair play to them, they did it.”

On the incident itself, Greenwood said: “It was a strange one because normally when you get an accusation like that, it goes on report, you crack on with it and then let the disciplinary deal with it.

“I don’t know what’s been said, what’s been seen, but they’ve gone with the straight red so it’s hard to tell. It’s not something I’ve seen before to be honest; I’ve seen red cards for biting, but those incidents have been clear and obvious.

“If an incident like that takes place in a tackle and the referee feels he might have seen something then it is usually sent through in a report and then dealt with during the week. In the end the red card was given, so we’ll wait until Thursday to see what happens.”