Bulldogs boss Diskin hoping Bradford '˜select' game gets go-ahead

NEW BOSS Matt Diskin is hopeful his Batley Bulldogs team will face Bradford Bulls as scheduled in a pre-season game on Sunday.

Bulls ceased trading last week, but a group of players has continued training together and they want to travel to Batley as a ‘Bradford Select’ side.

Bulldogs chief executive Paul Harrison said the game has been ratified by the Rugby Football League, but will only go ahead if insurance cover can be obtained for the Bradford players. Batley have offered to donate a share of the gate to the unemployed visitors and Diskin – who played for Bradford from 2011-2014 and was on the coaching staff before joining Bulldogs last autumn – said: “We’re hoping the game will be on.

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“Hopefully we can put a bit of money into the Bradford players’ and staff’s pockets, to help them through tough times.”

Diskin is “really close friends” with some of those left out of work by Bradford’s collapse, including assistant-coach and former Leeds Rhinos teammate Chev Walker.

He added: “It is tough for them, they are victims in all this.

“Other people’s poor decisions over the last few years have put the club in a position it should not be in.

People are out of a job and they can’t pay mortgages.”

The RFL are considering four bids to form a new Bradford club in time for the start of the new Kingstone Press Championship season next month.