KURT Haggerty joked he might turn to assistant Carl Forster to solve Bradford Bulls forward woes after his pack options took a further hit in Friday’s Challenge Cup defeat at Wigan Warriors.
The Bulls were beaten 30-6 in the fourth-round tie at The Brick Community Stadium, but also lost Brandon Douglas to a HIA and Eribe Doro to an ankle injury on his first start of season.
Off-season recruit Loghan Lewis was serving the first game of his two-match ban as well, with the double injury potentially leaving Bulls head coach Haggerty scratching his head with a front-row dilemma ahead of next Friday’s Super League clash at home to Huddersfield Giants.
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However, the 37-year-old is not fazed by the issues – even if he it does mean trying to convince former St Helens prop Forster to pull his boots on again.
“Dougie has failed his HIA and Eribe doesn’t look good,” Haggerty told BBC Radio Leeds. “[His ankle] has ballooned up already.
“We’ve got Carl Forster – he’s played a bit of front row. Right now, I don’t know.
“We’ve lost Loghan, so we were short on bodies as it is, but we’re cool on it.
“Sam Halsall has got some minutes in today, so we’ve got the mentality of next man up and that won’t change.”
Wigan stormed into the quarter-finals thanks to tries from Luke Thompson, Zach Eckersley, Liam Marshall, Adam Keighran, and debutant Dayon Sambou.
Despite only managing a sole converted try from Ethan Ryan with 15 minutes to go and being disappointed with Bradford’s lack of attacking belief in the first half, Haggerty took positives from the game.
“If we’d have a little more belief in how we play, and we’d played it from the start, we could have troubled Wigan early in the game,” Haggerty said.
“We’ve come here, we’ve played a very good team, we’re down on troops and we’ve got people out of position.
“We’ve lost Douglas, we’ve potentially lost Eribe, so we’ve got some minutes in some players which is good.
“But I thought if we’d had a little more belief offensively, it could have been a different outcome in the first half in particular.”
Challenge Cup fourth-round results and fixtures
Friday, March 13: Wakefield Trinity 24 Leeds Rhinos 12, Wigan Warriors 30 Bradford Bulls 6
Saturday, March 14: York Knights vs Keighley Cougars (12pm), Goole Vikings vs Warrington Wolves (at Halliwell Jones Stadium, 2pm), Huddersfield Giants vs Hull KR, Leigh Leopards vs Hull FC (both 3pm), Catalans Dragons vs Oldham (5.30pm GMT), Castleford Tigers vs St Helens (6pm)