Toulouse Olympique boss Sylvain Houles pointed to trouble with the Bradford Bulls’ pitch as one reason why they were outplayed at Odsal.
The French side were unbeaten through two rounds of Super League but they came unstuck against Kurt Haggerty’s Bradford, who ran in four tries and won 18-6 on Sunday afternoon.
Toulouse were in control early on but an Ethan Ryan try on the eve of half-time seemed to change the game, with Bradford kicking on in the second-half.
Speaking post-match on Sky Sports, Houles paid credit to the Bulls, stating: “I’m obviously disappointed but credit to Bradford, they executed their game plan pretty well.”
However, he did point to the pitch dimensions limiting how his side wanted to play.
Houles admitted: “It’s always hard to come here to Bradford. It’s a little bit different style of rugby that you have to play over here and I thought that they controlled us.
“We couldn’t put our rugby in place, but credit to them. I thought they executed it pretty well. Their kicking game was a little bit better than us. They deserved the win.”
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Anthony Marion knocked on over the line in the first half with that likely being one of the missed opportunities that Houles spoke of, however, he put the loss down to his side simply being outworked.
He explained: “I thought we had a couple of opportunities, and the game would have been different if we scored. That’s high level (rugby league), you need to put them in.
“Our energy was a little bit below our standard today and it’s probably down to Bradford turning up, and being a little bit more competitive than us today. That’s probably why we lost today.”
It won’t get any easier for Toulouse as they’re now set to face Wigan Warriors in round four, however, Houles pointed to the fact they’re at home as a major positive.
On table-toppers Wigan being next up, he said: “You know what you’re in for when you’re playing Super League. I think Wigan look tremendous at the moment but we want to test ourselves against the best and we’re going to back it up.
“Obviously, we’ve got a short turnaround but we’re going to recover and go again at home, where we prefer to play. It’s a better condition and a little bit wider pitch so it suits us more.
“We knew it would be tough. We played Bradford in the championship and expect that last year in August, when we beat them, we always lost here. As I say, it’s a different rugby.”
With Bradford’s win, it now means all three promoted sides sit on two wins from three, something that Houles hailed as ‘great’ for the sport.
“It’s great for rugby league and it’s great for Super League. We need to keep going like that now.”
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