BULLS BOOK FOURTH ROUND BERTH

Bradford Bulls ran in 22 unanswered points to book a spot in the fourth round of the Betfred Challenge Cup with a 26-8 defeat of London Broncos this afternoon.

The clash represented the first outing of the Kurt Haggerty era – who named eight debutants in his matchday squad including captain Joe Mellor.

A couple of early errors saw the Bulls defend their line but they provided the perfect response on 6 minutes, when a lovely powerplay move saw Caleb Aekins feed Jayden Okunbor to open the scoring. 

A real attritional battle followed in the next 20 minutes before London restored parity through Finley Glare. 

Minutes before the break, London pressure told when offloads sent Tindall over in the corner. 

Bradford came out firing at the start of the second half and a lovely passage of play saw Ackers dive over under the posts. 

The Bulls continued to probe and had a number of opportunities to post more points but eventually did so when Waqa Blake’s grubber was collected by Ethan Ryan to score. 

Some intelligent play from Mellor then sent Russell over for a try his industrious performance deserved as Bradford capitalised on London’s numerical disadvantage due to injuries.

The final scoring act of the game came through the aforementioned Blake, who turned scorer with a twisting, stretching effort to seal a superb second-half’s work from the Bulls, to book a spot in the fourth round of the Betfred Challenge Cup. 

BRADFORD BULLS: Caleb Aekins, Jayden Okunbor, Esan Marsters, Waqa Blake, Ethan Ryan, Joe Keyes, Rowan Milnes, Ryan Sutton, Andy Ackers, Loghan Lewis, Dan Russell, Zac Fulton, Joe Mellor. INTERCHANGES: Mitch Souter, Eribe Doro, Ebon Scurr, Ed Chamberlain. 18^th MAN: Eliot Peposhi. 

TRIES: Okunbor, Ackers, Ryan, Russell, Blake

GOALS: Milnes 3/5