The perennial finalists finished the one-day matches that comprise the first half of the season sitting in fifth on the ladder, a spot that they must improve on to remain in premiership contention.

However, two-day games offer the potential to earn a greater amount of competition points and Bulls skipper Josh Toole is keen to do just that.

“We seem to go better in two-dayers, those games seem to suit us better, so even though we are not quite going as well as I’d like to be at this time of year, we can hopefully change that,” Toole said.

“Two-dayers have a lot of points, so with a couple of wins we can be up there.”

The Bulls put themselves in a position to pick up win number four for the 2016-17 season with a solid batting performance against Rugby Union last Saturday at Brooke Moore Oval.

After winning the toss the Bulls amassed a total of 273, Toole hitting 79 of those while Mick Curtale (76) and Brett Archer (46) also did well.

“Definitely it was a good total in our first innings back. It’s good to get that sort of total on the board, but now we’ve got to bowl well, the job is only half done,” Toole said.

“We get more points in the two-dayers, so we need to be aggressive, bowl well and take wickets.”

In reply Rugby – the competition leaders – reached stumps at 1-50 with Chris Albon (15) and Ryan Peacock (36) the unbeaten men at the crease.

It was Aaron Seymour (1-7 off four overs) who took the wicket for Bulls, but the star all-rounder will be absent this Saturday.

His place will be taken by Troy Oxley and while the Bulls still have plenty of wicket-takers in its bowling attack, they will need to be on target in Seymour’s absence.

“We do lose our opening bowler, which is a bit of a blow, but we’ve got a bit of depth with our bowlers, we’ve got other blokes who can step up for us,” Toole said.

“We picked up that wicket pretty early last week, but we probably let them get away from us a bit after that.

“We played pretty aggressively because we were looking for a wicket and they scored about 20 more runs than I would’ve liked.

“It was a bit of a tricky time. They could have come out and knocked off a fair bit of that chase and made it easier on themselves this week, but then we did take that early wicket.

“We just need to make sure that we bowl tight and build pressure and if we do that, then the wickets will come.

“I think it’s right in the balance at the moment. If we can get a couple of early wickets then we will be in front, but if they can bat for an hour without losing a wicket, then they will be on top.”