Oakes relishing trip to Toulouse

Bradford’s leading try scorer Ross Oakes believes the Bulls will return to form at Toulouse next weekend.

The Bulls lost twice over the Easter weekend to stay two points away from wiping out their 12-point deduction, but Oakes thinks they can win in France.

“They’ll be very confident after their win against Hull KR, and we are the ones that have to do the traveling this time, but we will get there and we will do our best,” he told the club’s official website.

“We had a disappointing weekend with no wins last time out. Our performance against Featherstone was way off the mark so we are going to use these days to come together and work on what we need to improve on.

“We have a big week ahead before our trip to France. I think that we will come good there.

“We’ve been in almost every day this week and we’ve been at it non-stop really. It’s been really tough but we have made great progress.”

Oakes bagged a couple of tries in Bradford’s 44-18 defeat at Featherstone on Monday to take his tally to ten for the season and he says he’s enjoying being a regular fixture in the team.

“At the start of the year I didn’t think that I would get thrown straight into the deep end straight away, but I have been.

“I’ve been given a starting number as well, so I’m hoping to get better each week and I strive to be up there with the best in the league.

“It’s always good to get over the line but being up there with Ethan Ryan and James Bentley who came through the academy is even better, it’s great to be up there with them on tries.

“There’s always going to be a bit of competition but we haven’t really spoke about it, especially with me and Ethan playing on the same side, we don’t want it to affect our game.”