TEN minutes in and this potential cracker of a game was all over bar the shouting.

The bossy, bucking, bullying Bulls were 18-0 up and the bewildered, shell-shocked Roughyeds – players, coaching staff, management and fans – wondered what the heck was going on.

Under the command of John Kear, the best known and most experienced coach in the Betfred Championship, the Bradford boys went for the jugular from the kick-off, no doubt armed with the knowledge that Oldham had made a similarly slow and weak start at Widnes Vikings the week before.

You could see in the pre-match warm-up that the Bulls were fired up for this one. Their body language said it all.

Their game plan seemed to be to smash the newly-promoted upstarts into submission as early as possible and long before they could start to believe that they were capable of knocking over one of the highest-profile clubs outside Super League.

It was a plan that worked a treat on the back of early handling errors by home winger Lee Kershaw and full-back Dan Abram.

Instead of rolling up their sleeves, closing ranks and responding positively, Roughyeds collapsed alarmingly as Bulls smashed through for tries by Sam Hallas, Steve Crossley and Brandon Pickersgill, all converted by Rowan Milnes, in the third, seventh and 10th minutes.

Bulls got another try by Joe Cator to lead 24-0 at half time but Roughyeds finally got their act together in the second half to turn the game on its head, although they had left themselves too much to do.

They kept the Bulls try-less for 55 minutes and the visitors’ only score in the second half was a Milnes penalty goal.

Indeed, if you conveniently delete that horrific first 10 minutes, Matt Diskin’s men ‘won’ a 70-minute game 12-8 thanks to a brace of tries by impressive second-rower Danny Bridge in the 57th and 70th minutes.

Sub hooker Matty Wilkinson, who also gave the Bulls defence a lot of trouble in the second half, flew out of dummy half to lay on Bridge’s first try and Dave Hewitt’s grubber into the in-goal area allowed him to grab his second.

Abram converted both of them to put Roughyeds only 14 points in arrears, but they ran out of time and were left to rue that sloppy, slovenly start.

Young Jack Croft at centre, stand-off Lewis Charnock and prop Phil Joy worked desperately hard, but Roughyeds will have to make a far better start against Dewsbury Rams at Bower Fold this Sunday (3pm) if they are to pick up their second league win at the fifth attempt.

Scorers: Oldham – goals: Abram 2/2. Tries: Bridge (2). Bradford – Goals: Milnes 5/5. Tries: Hallas, Crossley, Pickersgill, Cator.

OLDHAM: Abram; Ince, Croft, Leeming, Kershaw; Charnock, Hewitt; Joy, Owen, Beckett, Bridge, Langtree, Spencer. Subs: Wilkinson, Fletcher, Davies, Gwaze.

BRADFORD: Pickersgill; Joe Brown, Evans, Oakes, Dawson; Milnes, Lilley; England, Hallas, Crossley, Waite-Pullan, Gallagher, Cator. Subs: Flanagan, Scurr, Jack Brown, Nzoungou.

Referee: Cameron Worsley. Attendance: 1,189.