Lingard Reflects on Heavy Bulls Defeat
Craig Lingard said Sheffield Eagles’ 70–8 defeat to Bradford Bulls on Friday evening once again underlined his side’s lack of resilience as the club fell to another loss in the Betfred Championship.
The defeat now leaves the Eagles without a league win in nine games, having last won away at Barrow Raiders on Sunday 15th June.
Despite going behind early on through Guy Armitage's opening try, the Eagles responded shortly after through Jack Bussey, but their opponents were too strong as a further six tries in the opening half saw them lead 42-4 at half time.
Sheffield scored a consolation try halfway into the second half through Martyn Reilly, but a further five tries scored by Bradford saw them run out as 70-8 winners in South Yorkshire.
“The result is painful, it’s where we’ve been for majority of the season and I think that it just highlights the deficiencies that we have got,” Lingard admitted.
“The season is what it has been, it has been disrupted on-and-off the field and we knew it was going to be tough, I just don’t think anyone thought that it would be as tough as it has been.
“I think what we have highlighted in the last month or two is the things that we cannot allow to happen again next year. In the games we have played recently, we haven’t been physically strong or fit enough.
“I don’t think ball-in-hand was really an issue tonight, I felt that we looked threating at times in attack when we had the opportunity to do so in the Bradford’s twenty metre area, but we just didn’t do that enough tonight.
“Our issue is that we’re not resilient enough, we have a bit of a crack in our defence and that crack turns into the Grand Canyon because we haven’t got the resilience or the backbone at the minute to cope with things that don’t go perfectly right, and then we crumble and we crack.”
Despite Friday night’s disappointing result, a positive to take from the match was the debut of Will Oakes.
The former Hull KR and York Knights man made his first competitive rugby league appearance since the 3rd July 2022, following on from a couple of serious injuries, but Lingard was pleased with his performance after coming off the bench in the second half at the Steel City Stadium.
“I was really pleased for Will for him to be able to get back out there this evening, he’s had a couple of tough years injury wise. He came to us about ten weeks ago just to train, get fit and get back into some sort of fitness.
“I think he was really wanting to give it until next year, get a good pre-season under him to put himself in the shop window to try and earn a contract with us, but he’s trained really well with us since he’s come in and with the injuries that we’ve got, we felt that we could put him on the bench this evening.
“Doing that allowed us to have a little bit of cover in the backs, and once he came on I thought he did pretty well. He carried well, and to say he’s been out for a couple of years, I thought he did well.”
Forward Martyn Reilly also returned to action after some taking time away following the recent passing of his sister, and Lingard spoke about his pride in how Reilly handled the match.
“First and foremost, as a friend, I was proud of him to take to the field. I know it will have been tough for him, but we’re all there for him as a group. We’ll do anything we can to help him, but I was really proud of him this evening.
“It’s not about tries or rugby for Martyn tonight, I think it was about the way that he conducted himself.
“It will have been an emotional evening for him, I know that him and his family will still have more things to organise. I think he’ll be emotional at the minute, but I’ve had lots of coffees with him over the last couple of weeks to help make sure he’s ok.
“We’ve been very close since our time at Batley, where we built a strong bond together there.
“Not only do I consider him a good part of this team, but I consider him a really close friend and regardless of where we are in rugby league, that bond will always remain.”
The Eagles will be hoping to put this run of results behind them next weekend and get back to winning ways against a Featherstone Rovers side who were beaten at home by Widnes on Saturday evening.
Kick off at the Steel City Stadium next Sunday afternoon is at 3pm.