Bradford Bulls will play their first game of pre-season this weekend with a number of key men missing, as confirmed by head coach Kurt Haggerty.
The Bulls actually have two games pencilled in with a youthful team set to travel to Dewsbury on Saturday before a near full-strength side makes the trip to Doncaster on Sunday, though up to three players could miss out through injury.
Asked about the plans for this weekend, Haggerty told BBC Radio Leeds: “We’re looking to use around 22 to 24 players. We’ll start pretty strong.
“There’s some boys I need to see within that as well, but I’m hoping we can get at least 30 to 40 minutes game time in near enough every player bar maybe one or two, who will just get some minutes towards the end.”
As for his new recruits, he admitted that “most of them” will play against Doncaster, adding: “We’ll have a couple playing in the Dewsbury game, probably no more than two or three. The rest will be with the first team, the boys will want to have a look at.”
Bradford Bulls set to be without trio for pre-season opener
Haggerty also expanded on which players from the first team will miss out with two of them being signings from his former club Salford Red Devils.
He revealed: “We’ve got a couple so there could possibly be Joe Mellor, Loghan Lewis and potentially Ebon Scurr but I’ll know more on Ebon tomorrow.”
One positive that he added was that none of the trio will miss round one of Super League, which is five weeks away with Haggerty even hopeful that they will be back available for the pre-season friendly against Leeds Rhinos in two weeks time.
As for his hopes for the friendlies, Haggerty explained: “I think it’s practising the new systems under fatigue, really seeing what it looks like. It looks great in training, but we’ve not really been tested yet at a game-paced intensity.
“Hoping we come out of the friendlies pretty well, we’ll be pretty much full strength for round one.”
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