A draw at home against Batley was the only time the Roughyeds didn’t finish with a perfect record this season. Going into the match, they had won all but one of their competitive home games.
The team captained by Brian Noble would break that record in dramatic manner, giving the Odsal team its fourth consecutive win across all competitions.
They managed to achieve this mammoth victory without one of their star men in the shape of Joe Keyes too, but his replacement in the halves – Jordan Lilley – was magnificent throughout.
Noble confirmed that Keyes missed out after breaking his finger prior to the game.
Bayley Liu retained his starting berth for the visitors, while there was a surprise inclusion for Bulls from the get-go in the shape of Sam Hallas.
The match started in a frantic manner with three tries coming in the opening nine minutes of the contest.
Bulls will have been quite literally kicking themselves after their opening play, as they overshot the kick-off behind Oldham’s in-goal area to gift the hosts an early opportunity to get on the scoreboard, and that’s exactly what Sean Long’s side did.
The ball was worked left to Danny Craven on the sixth phase of play and the winger made no mistake in touching down for the hosts, but the conversion attempt drifted wide.
As frustrated as Noble will have been with Bulls’ start, he’ll have been more than made up with how the visitors responded.
Two quickfire tries from Jordan Lilley and Guy Armitage, both unconverted, had Bradford ahead, with the latter’s effort being one of the tries of the season so far.
The Bulls broke from their ten-metre line with Waqa Blake bursting through a gap before finding James Meadows, whose looping pass was received by Liu. He then played in Armitage to finish in the corner for an outstanding team try.
Following the early drama there was a slight lull in the game, but it didn’t take long for the Bulls to find their attacking rhythm once again.
In the 24th minute Blake collected the ball on the right-edge, where he then jinked his way through several Oldham challenges to score just to the right of the posts. Lilley added the conversion on this occasion, making it 14-6 to the visitors.
And three minutes later Blake was over again, latching on to a brilliant Lilley grubber kick, which arrived after the hosts had played the initial restart out of play on the full.
Lilley added the extras again for Bradford.
The scoring wasn’t over for Noble’s side, who added one more converted try before the break.
Jayden Okunbor palmed a floated kick from Lilley into the path of Zac Fulton who darted over for the Bulls to round off a truly memorable half of attacking rugby from the visitors. 26-6 at the break.
Firstly, Lilley dummied his way past two Oldham players to sore under the posts, which he duly converted.
And Blake beat his man on the right-edge to put the ball down in the right-hand corner. Lilley added the extras expertly from out wide to make it 38-6 in favour of the away side.
With 13 minutes of the contest remaining the hosts found a gap in the Bradford defence following a break from deep. Bailey Aldridge gratefully accepted a pass to race clear and score under the posts, which Josh Drinkwater converted to give the home supporters something to celebrate.
It would be the extremely vocal and buoyant Bradford fans who had the final cheer, as Okunbor collected a brilliantly lofted pass to score an unconverted try in the corner for the visitors, making it 42-12 at the full-time whistle.
It was a real statement win for Bradford, and they’ll be hoping to make it five victories on the bounce when Sheffield Eagles come to town next Sunday.
Bradford Bulls: Luke Hooley, Jayden Okunbor, Waqa Blake, Bayley Liu, Guy Armitage, James Meadows, Jordan Lilley, Michael Lawrence, Sam Hallas, Ebon Scurr, Zac Fulton, Matty Gee and James Donaldson.
