Bradford Bulls CEO Jason Hirst has confirmed that ‘world class players’ will be signing for the club after their return to Super League, whilst he’s also confirmed plans to amend and fix up the Odsal pitch.
The Bulls’ time outside Super League officially ended on Thursday when they were confirmed as returning to the top flight having placed tenth on the IMG gradings after a huge 2.66 point increase.
Reacting to that news, Hirst told BBC Radio Leeds: “In terms of the recent history of Bradford Bulls, I don’t think there’s many days that surpass this in the last 30 years.
“The Bulls are back in Super League after an 11-year wait and it’s massive.”
An immediate question for many was how the club had managed such a huge jump up the rankings, moving from 16th to 10th and gaining points in three of the five IMG pillars.
Hirst explained: “We’ve managed to do it through on-field and off-field. When I say on-field, gone are the days of first past the post. We didn’t quite win the league, we finished third and we lost in the semi-finals so under the traditional English way of being success and finishing top, no we weren’t.”
What Bradford were was consistent, finishing high in the Championship over the past three years with the three promoted teams actually being the top three from the second tier, leaving Hirst to argue that fans can’t complain about it from a performance aspect.
“If fans are crying out for the best three teams then we tick that box.”
Bradford Bulls to fix up pitch and squad before Super League return
As for off-field improvements, he said: “Off the field, we’ve been the best and that’s fact. We’ve posted profits these last few years and not many teams can post profits which we’ve done.
“We’ve improved our facilities. Under facilities, there are ten strands and we’ve improved in every single one. In the last twelve months alone, we’ve brought in a big screen, LED advertising, an extended TV gantry, a director’s box on the halfway line that is a community box from Monday to Friday.
“We’ve ticked every single box and that’s hard for some people to stomach and that’s okay, we live in democracy and people have their opinions but every single club knew how to score on IMG.”
One thing he did concede was that the club do need to work on the pitch, confirming that they have consulted with multiple companies about how they will fix up the corners of the pitch which are cut into somewhat by the stock car track.
Hirst admitted: “With this pitch, we’ve got a little bit of work to do. We need to tidy up the corners and we’re going to look at the dimensions and it will all be done in time for Super League.”
As for squad-building, something Kurt Haggerty has spoken about, Hirst has claimed the club will make ‘world class’ signings.
He said: “We’re not going to make up the numbers. Everybody who comes to Bradford or plays against Bradford will know they’ve been in a match.
“We’ve got some world class players coming to the Bulls that we haven’t announced yet and with world class players you get good teams.”
