One of the biggest things Mark Dunning has brought to Bradford Bulls is a new culture and he has talked about this quite frequently in recent times and after today’s defeat to Leeds Rhinos in pre-season, he revealed one of the philosophies behind this.
That being the four Es.
He explained: “We’ve built a lot of what we have done this year on what we call the four Es: effort, enthusiasm, excitement with and without the ball and energy.
“I thought we saw that in abundance today even in the tough times when they had a lot of ball and are a quality team and we dug in and we stayed connected and we tried to resolve it through energy and defensive resolve.”
As part of this new culture, he has enforced a new rule that will see players fined for giving away penalties when they have the ball.
The Bulls have one of the best young players in the country in Huddersfield Giants bound George Flanagan Jr who was exceptional today but he did make one error when he knocked on and in his frustration gave away a penalty and Dunning revealed he will be fined for this.
This came as it was put to him that it was good that Flanagan showed a lot of passion in that moment:
“I tend to disagree with you. There’s something internally that we have done something this year that if you give a penalty away when we have the ball, that’s not okay and consequently every player who does it will cop a fine and George will cop a fine for that.”
Nonetheless, he was impressed by Flanagan’s overall performance:
“I thought he showed real good glimpses. I thought the try in the corner would have been fitting. He made a good break.
“He showed glimpses of his talent and his quality but he doesn’t need to be giving penalties away when we’re in possession. But I have already had a chat with him.”
