‘The best team won’ - Bradford Bulls ‘deserve’ Championship play-off semi-final spot after victory over Featherstone Rovers, says James Ford

The in-form Bulls, who finished the regular season with five wins from their last six games, established a deserved 25-0 lead at Odsal thanks to tries from Jayden Myers, Kieran Gill, Jordan Lilley and Keven Appo.

Josh Hardcastle and Brad Day responded for Fev but it was too little, too late, as their 2024 season ended in the play-offs for a fifth consecutive season.

Ford told the Express after the 25-12 defeat:

“I thought that the best team won on the day. Bradford have been marginally better than us throughout the season. They beat us physically from minute one onwards today.

“Bradford ran really hard and were deserved winners.”

Myers’ try arrived barely two minutes into the play-off eliminator, with Fev not seeing the ball after starting the game.

However, they only trailed 7-0 going into half-time, before a flurry of tries put the game out of reach in the second half and set the Bulls up for a play-off semi-final at Toulouse.

“We gave another six away and it was daft in that scenario,” Ford said. “They scored off of a kick. The start wasn’t great but you could see Bradford’s intent of carries and contact was a little bit up on ours and, over the weight of 80 minutes, that does pay dividends and it did today.”

He added: “Having said that, it’s 7-0 at half-time. We probably tossed up our worst half of the season, in that first 40 minutes. But Bradford gave us opportunities to come back into it but we just threw possession away.

“They have given us some opportunities to get back into the game and we have just thrown it away and they scored a couple of tries in and around that.

“And there’s the game. We fought back a little bit at the end but it was far too little too late.”

Asked if there would have been more hope had his side’s late response came earlier, he said:

“The last two tries weren’t going to have an impact on the game. We’d have needed another 20 minutes.

“Why was our initial contact off? Why’s our push off? Why aren’t we doing the things that we had prepped to do?

“They were better than us.”