Despite being two from two, the Bulls are a long way off where they want to be.

“We’ve not been playing that good,” Bulls coach Damien Kelly said.

“No-one’s really happy with it.”

Against Tamworth they didn’t start well. They didn’t either against Gunnedah, but that wasn’t totally unexpected with prop John Adams’ wedding the day before.

The concern for Kelly from that game was their defence.

“We didn’t defend that well,” he said.

“We attacked all right.”

It’s something they’ve prided themselves on, and will need to improve today.

“We need to defend well,” Kelly said.

“Walcha are probably one of the hardest teams to defend against.”

“They’re very quick.

“It’s always a pretty fast game.”

The breakdown is another aspect they need to address, and Kelly will be looking for more urgency at the breakdown.

There’s been too many guys watching, he said, which, as a consequence of, they’ve been penalised a bit for holding on.

He said it was good to still be coming up with the results when they’re not playing well but knows they can play a lot better than they have been.

“If we play to our potential we should be in the contest,” he said.

If not, it’ll be a long day.

They sit on top and are one of four sides with two wins.

Two of the others – Inverell and Scone – will meet in Scone today.

The Brumbies are coming off a hard-fought win over Barraba and are expecting a tough encounter.

“Whenever we play Inverell we get a tough game,” co-coach Duncan Pinfold said.

They have had a pretty good record against them but with a very different side – what they’ve done in the past is irrelevant, he said.

The Brumbies have taken from the Bulls’ playbook with defence a  focus.

“If we take care of that the opportunity to put points on the board will arise from time to time,” Pinfold said.

“We’re aiming to take the points whenever we’re in their 40.”

Patience will be a big factor in whether or not they can do that. 

“When we’ve got the ball in their half we want to make sure we hang onto it until they falter,” he said.

It’s something they learnt from the Bulls last year.

“Last year we didn’t have that patience in attack,” Pinfold said.

They’d get to five or six phases and if they hadn’t scored or got points they’d think “strewth, what do we do now”.

Against Barraba it was missing.

“If we do what we did against Barraba we’ll get smoked by Inverell,” he said.

In other games, Narrabri travels to Barraba and Tamworth and Quirindi will be striving for their first win when they clash in Quirindi.