DON’T mention the play-offs – that is the Bulls mantra as they head into a “minefield” fixture at Dewsbury.

John Kear’s side need plenty of help elsewhere if they are to sneak through the back door into the Championship’s top five in the final leg of the season.

Either York or Featherstone, who clash tomorrow at Bootham Crescent, must lose their remaining three games to be catchable.

But that also hinges on the Bulls winning all of theirs and that is the message that Kear has been ramming home ahead of the derby trip to the Tetley’s Stadium.

“If we take our eye off the ball, we’ll lose,” he warned. “Featherstone nearly found that out when they went to Dewsbury and only won by a point.

“Featherstone got a scare and that obviously put them on their toes the following week against Swinton.

“We need to learn from that scare and make sure we go to Dewsbury fully prepared and ready to play.

“We can only focus on what we can affect. We can’t influence anything that’s going on with the Featherstone or York camp.

“We’ve just got to keep grafting away and making sure we do our jobs right.

“We’re not looking at the play-offs, to tell you the truth. We’ve decided not to do that.

“We’re just doing it game-by-game. I know it’s boring because it’s what everybody says but that’s what we are doing.

“We can’t do anything about the scores elsewhere. You get obsessed with others rather than yourself and come unstuck.”

A Featherstone draw would technically not kill off the Bulls, who could still finish level with them on points. But Rovers currently enjoy a sizeable 228 advantage in points difference.

Kear added: “The points difference is quite a big one and we’d have to address that. Obviously they’d have to lose to Batley and then to Toulouse.

“It is feasible that they could lose by a fair few points to Toulouse and that we could win by a fair few at Rochdale.”

But that will be academic if the Bulls come up short against a Dewsbury side who are strong on their own turf. As well as running Featherstone close, they also recently beat Halifax.

“One reason they are good at home is that they are a big, aggressive team but the other is because the pitch is very narrow and very short,” said Kear.

“As Toronto found out, it’s a tough place to go.

“Toronto have only been behind three times all season at half-time. Apart from when they lost to Toulouse, once was against us and the other one was at Dewsbury.

“It's a minefield. If we go in disrespecting them, we’ll lose.”