{"id":739888,"date":"2026-08-16T14:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T14:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/739888\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T14:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T14:38:12","slug":"bradford-bulls-man-apologises-to-coach-for-efforts-in-wigan-defeat-as-more-injuries-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/739888\/","title":{"rendered":"Bradford Bulls man apologises to coach for efforts in Wigan defeat as more injuries revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Kurt Haggerty has revealed that Bradford Bulls star Waqa Blake apologised to him post-match after his performance in defeat to Wigan Warriors.<\/p>\n

Blake was one of five returning players to Haggerty\u2019s side, but the Fijian porobably shouldn\u2019t have played, and had they had sufficient bodies to cover him, he would have been rested for at least until round 24.<\/p>\n

However, as is a testament to his character, the boss revealed that Blake \u201cplayed on one leg and with a sore back,\u201d but due to injuries to the likes of Connor Wynne and Esan Marsters, they didn\u2019t have enough quality available to replace him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Waqa hadn\u2019t have played tonight, we\u2019d have been in a lot of trouble team-wise. I won\u2019t be overly critical of Waqa\u2019s performance, he\u2019s got some things wrong systematically, which he usually doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s put his hand up to play in very adverse times, which is a reflection of the man and what he\u2019s done for us this year. He\u2019s apologised to me after the game for his performance, which he didn\u2019t need to do. For him, just putting a shirt on tonight was enough.<\/p>\n

Riley Dean, who is a half-back by trade but has played centre, was named at 18th man, with Haggerty opting to use Dan Russell in the three-quarters. He explained that was down to \u201cbalance and size\u201d, with Wigan being a big team with some real star quality on the edges.<\/p>\n

Injuries continue for Bradford Bulls as boss reveals latest<\/p>\n

As well as Blake not being 100%, back rower Phoenix Steinwede failed his HIA, meaning that he will be unavailable for next week\u2019s game against Leigh Leopards.<\/p>\n

Most Read on Serious About Rugby League<\/p>\n

Haggerty also confirmed that there were injuries to Ryan Sutton and Luke Hooley, with Sutton potentially dislocating his thumb and Luke Hooley taking a \u201cpretty nasty twist on his knee.\u201d Joe Mellor was another who \u201cprobably shouldn\u2019t have played,\u201d having suffered a quad problem.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kurt Haggerty has revealed that Bradford Bulls star Waqa Blake apologised to him post-match after his performance in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-739888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=739888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=739888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=739888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=739888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}