COACH Darryl Van de Velde was left wandering why his side took 20 minutes to wake up in their game against Bradford on Sunday.

The Australian watched his team squander four excellent scoring chances and ship three tries at their own end in a disastrous opening spell.

His side rallied, coming back with two tries courtesy of Jason Roach, but there was too much of a hill to climb after such a disappointing start and they ended up 36-8 losers.

Van de Velde said: "We always knew it was going to be tough coming to Odsal when they're chasing the play-offs but some of our players didn't start in the first 40 minutes.

"We didn't have 13 players competing and you're always going to struggle in those circumstances.

"The worst part of the slow start was that we didn't take the four chances that came our way in the first 20 minutes. You've got to score points if you want to win games and we had the opportunities to do that.

"We had blokes not running deep enough, not catching the ball and not supporting when they should have been. Michael Eagar had two busts and when he went to ground there was no-one within 20 metres of him.

"It got to 18-0 when we should have still been right in it and we never really got back in the game from there."

The coach said the decision to move Lee Briers to the left wing slot late in the game came down simply to a need to have 13 bodies on the pitch.

He said: "I knew Lee was struggling from taking a few knocks but I hadn't got any backs fit to replace him with so I had to move him out to the wing and ask him to get on with it.

"We're down to the bare bones again now with Danny Farrar and Lee Penny struggling as well so there won't be too many options available next week."

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