Bradford Bulls winger glad to be backed as he floors Batley

The Bulls winger may have produced the odd poor performance this season, notably a personal horror show at Widnes on TV last month, but interim head coach Lee Greenwood has never doubted his ability to bounce back.

And he was superb on Sunday, scoring two tries and even producing a perfect kick to assist Michael Lawrence in the dying seconds of Bradford’s stunning 42-6 win at play-off rivals Batley.

After the game, a tongue-in-cheek Blackmore told the T&A: “I’ve put my finger on it, it’s those Monday night games, I can’t seem to play in them.

“Sundays I’ve been doing alright, but in that six-day turnaround after Barrow, I came back, knuckled down at training and thought I did well today.

“I speak to Lee and Nobby (Brian Noble) quite a bit and they’ve had faith in me after a few bad games and I’ve come back firing.”

Brian Noble and Lee Greenwood has constantly maintained their faith in Ben Blackmore and have tended to be rewarded. (Image: Tom Pearson.)

Blackmore’s first try really caught the eye on Sunday, as with both teams stopping expecting a penalty for a foul on Tom Holmes, the winger scooped up the loose ball and darted through to score brilliantly in the corner.

He said: “I went to stop, because when Gasky (Lee Gaskell) threw me it and everyone moved away, I thought the referee must have blown up.

“But I scored it anyway, so happy days.”

Laughing, he added: “It was nice to contribute to Michael’s try, I’ve been training for it all year and it was a good kick.”

Young Jayden Myers was playing on the inside of Blackmore on Sunday, with the winger full of praise for the centre.

He said: “He was one of my best players today.

“He’s growing and growing, he’s killing it, and he’s only going to get better.”

Jayden Myers (kneeling) has impressed Ben Blackmore (standing) since returning to the first team a few weeks ago. (Image: Tom Pearson.)

All the Bulls players were buoyant after that stunning win, which bodes well heading into the rest of the play-off fight, with six games left to go.

Blackmore said: “We’ve been given a few days off, to rest and spend time with our family.

“We’ve got a little quote together, which is “team first”, so we’re all going to get our heads down and fight towards Newcastle.

“That team spirit helps us. There are little groups but we’re good together too, it’s a good mix and we all get on.”

Bulls are just a point off third heading into that home clash with rock-bottom Newcastle on Sunday, August 20, with Blackmore saying: “We’ve spoken about that.

“But we’ve just got to keep running, week by week, which is what we did this week.

“Nobody’s beaten Batley by that margin for a while, so we came here firing.

“We’ll knuckle down for Newcastle as I said and hopefully put a good number on them.”