Bradford Bulls head coach Kurt Haggerty explained that losing out in key moments against Wakefield Trinity ultimately saw his side lose the match.
Among several key moments, none of which Haggerty mentioned, were Bradford’s three disallowed tries in the match with the Bulls ultimately losing five tries to three in a 26-12 defeat.
None of those disallowed tries were controversial as such but it highlighted just how close Bradford were but their inability to ice the key moments did prove pivotal, and Haggerty admitted that when speaking post-match on Sky Sports.
“There was and I think we’ve had that for the majority of the season,” Haggerty said when asked about his side’s braveness.
“It’s quite hard to digest at the moment how you feel straight after the game, but I thought we lost a couple of big moments, which led to us losing the game.
“We had a big focus in that we can win back-to-back and try to beat the team in the top six, so we went close. It’s a step in the right direction, but again, we’ll never be valiant losers and I’m pretty devastated.”
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Whilst the final score reads 26-12, the game was only 16-12 with just over ten minutes to but a try for Josh Rourke and a 75th score by Harvey Smith stretched that lead out, however, early on the game looked like it could be a massive scoreline.
Bradford lost Loghan Lewis in the warm-up and knocked on from kick-off as they conceded inside two minutes and didn’t have any possession until the seventh minute but Haggerty explained that he was never fearful of a blowout, though admitted that his game plan was out of the window.
He explained: “I thought what was tricky is tht I played about with the team a little bit this week in regards to trying to eradicate their big pack, so we put Joe (Mellor) on the bench and started Loghan Lewis and Jack Ormondroyd.
“We had a bit of a plan around how the game would start, and then we’ve lost Loghan and reverted back to tyoe, so we just threw everything off and it kind of disjointed us a little bit.
“But again, we started the game poorly with an error, but we have a mentality, we have a bit of a strap line that we’re the scrappers, so wherever we go, however we play, we make sure we have a scrap and we have a crack every week.”
The Bulls were dealt more adversity as second-rower Dan Russell was sent to hospital with an eye socket injury despite passing his head injury assessment.
When asked for an update, Haggerty confirmed he was yet to speak with the forward but added: “I think it’s pretty serious because he’s passed his HIA, but I think it’s pretty bad.”
With Leeds next up before four more games against play-off sides, Haggerty explained the club’s no fear approach: “We very much look at it as very exciting games coming up for us. It certainly doesn’t fear us, we’ve shown that all year, and again, we’ve got a game next week that’s pretty big.
“Every week’s enjoyable, every week’s big, and if we perform like that and we win some of them big moments, we’ll get close to winning.”
Wakefield keep their winning run going! ⏩ pic.twitter.com/rXRlCgLpjY
— Sky Sports Rugby League (@SkySportsRL) July 16, 2026
