Bradford Bulls head coach Kurt Haggerty has identified Saturday’s pre-season friendly with Leeds Rhinos as a perfect springboard for the promoted club to launch their first season back in Super League.
The Bulls will travel to Leeds this Saturday before having a week off and then contesting the third round of the Challenge Cup in early February, before then starting their Super League campaign away to Hull FC.
Saturday’s clash with Leeds will be the Bulls’ second and final game of pre-season with Bradford previously beating Doncaster in a game that saw Kurt Haggerty blood 12 new signings.
Once again, 12 signings are named to face Leeds, however, there’s a new recruit who could debut with Loghan Lewis named in the 20-man squad with just Ed Chamberlain, Joe Mellor and Will Gardiner, who is a longer-term injury, yet to feature for the club since signing.
One of their try-scorers against Doncaster, Zac Fulton, misses out with Haggerty confirming that to be a dead leg but the forward is set to be available for their Challenge Cup match in two weeks time, where they could face London Broncos.
As for Joe Mellor, Guy Armitage and Ebon Scurr, Haggerty said: “I’m hoping London but if not, definitely for round one.”
What Bradford Bulls boss expects from Leeds Rhinos clash
With the Bulls relatively injury-free, Haggerty explained that Saturday’s game will be another chance to learn more about his squad, which is massively changed from the side that placed third in the Championship after a huge 16 signings were made this off-season.
“It’s to learn more about the squad,” he said when asked what the goals of this second and final pre-season games were, adding: “To learn to look at what different balances look like at different times in the game, what combinations work, what it can look like when people have moved out of position, so we’ll learn a lot from the game.
“I’m really excited to see how we look against a very good Super League team, and especially how we look under fatigue at Super League level.”
With this being the club’s final pre-season game, Haggerty was asked about the importance of utilising it to add that bit more game-scenario cohesion into a squad that has had so many new additions.
To that, he hailed Leeds as a near-perfect opponent: “We spoke about it as a group because it is still a trial game, there’s still a lot of players I need to see play at this level, so we couldn’t have had a better test leading into the Challenge Cup and then leading into round one.
“Overall, the journey that we’ve come on within ten weeks has been amazing, and this is kind of the start for us now to really see what it looks like and then kick on for the rest of the year.”
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👥 SQUAD | Bradford Bulls head coach Kurt Haggerty, sponsored by Sandy & Richard Monro, has named a 20-Man Squad to face Leeds Rhinos at AMT Headingley on Saturday 24th January (1:00pm).
📖 | https://t.co/R37Ps1EHgz#RunWithTheBulls | @ASNDoors pic.twitter.com/yDcI4bwmbY
— Bradford Bulls (@OfficialBullsRL) January 22, 2026
