Revealed: Players took responsibility for Bradford defeat that has seen Dunning sacked

Yesterday Bradford Bulls lost for the third game in a row and conceded 42 points in the second half against Barrow Raiders losing by a final score of 46-12.

As is often the case after results like this, some fans have called for change and change has come with the Bulls and Dunning parting company with a statement from the club this afternoon.

This comes after Dunning said that the players had taken responsibility for the defeat.

“The players have just said down there that they’ve had everything they needed,” Dunning said yesterday.

“They knew everything that was going to happen, they’ve been looked after all week, had kit put out, trained well to be fair and then when it gets tough five minutes into the second half it’s capitulation and a tap-out.

“We’ve got to look at absolutely everything, scrutinise it and rip it to bits.

“Anybody that puts a Bulls jumper on should have effort, energy and enthusiasm. They take no skill whatsoever, they take no talent, they’re just an attitude based thing. That’s heart and head and I didn’t see that in the second half.

“Barrow have had 19 sets in that second half, forced five drop outs and four errors and we’ve just had eight sets so clearly what we said at half time went in one ear and out the other.

Further he has said that the players told him that they felt they let him down:

“I’m a massive advocate for everything we do, we do together as one group and straight away the players are down there apologising to me ‘we’ve let you down again’.”

Less than 24 hours after these comments, Dunning has left Odsal with the club now on the look out for the next head coach.