Former Kiwis Shontayne Hape and Lesley Vainikolo celebrate Bradford Bulls' last Super League title success in 2005.

OPINION: You would hope new owners appointing a vastly experienced NRL coach would breathe new life into a rugby league club that's on its knees - again.

New Zealanders Graham Lowe and Andrew Chalmers resurrecting the liquidated Bradford Bulls and, as new owners, offering hope to its long-suffering supporters should be the first of many positive steps forward.

The next was the arrival of Manly legend Geoff Toovey as coach for the new season; the third was making the returning Bradford-born Leon Pryce club captain at 35, after winning two World Club Challenges, three Super League titles with the Bulls before he left in 2005.

But we Bradford fans are sceptical, and deservedly so, after years of catastrophic mismanagement from previous owners with good intentions.

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Former chairman Marc Green, who put the club into administration in November 2016, now owes creditors nearly £2million (NZ$3.47m), according to Bradford's Telegraph & Argus newspaper.

Growing up supporting Bradford's rugby league and football teams from a young age certainly had its up and downs.

But the demise of the Bulls since winning the 2006 World Club Challenge is really hard to take.

I was on holiday when I heard that Bradford Bulls RLFC, founded in 1907 as Bradford Northern, went into liquidation after crippling financial problems finally broke them. I choked.

Three administrations - in 2012, 2014 and 2016 - in four years finally took its toll and the Bulls who led the charge, on and off the field, in the Super League era were out of business.

Step forward Lowe and Chalmers, the men this month sworn in as Bradford's latest white knights.

In the pair's first press conference as Bradford owners, Lowe said he 'looked in the players' eyes' and saw stress.

Should Lowe do the same with fans, he would see daggers.

That isn't his fault, but Bradford's faithful have been fed similar spiel from similar knights in similar shining armour.

What is unsettling is Lowe's failed stint as joint-owner of the Warriors at the turn of the millenium, as well Chalmers' short spell as chairman of NZRL - a position he held for just over a year before his resignation in 2009.

Every fan from New Zealand to the Fat Dogs (a club supporters group named after a chip van behind the terrace) has every right to be unconvinced with the sudden, and expected, arrival of two New Zealanders with a vision to bring back the good times.

That isn't because Bradford doesn't have much of an affinity with Kiwis - far from it.

The team of the century named in 2007 included five - 'Jack' McLean, Shontayne Hape, Lesley Vainikolo, Robbie Hunter-Paul and Joe Vagana - with every one but McLean, who won two All Blacks test caps in the 1940s, starring in Bradford's golden era between 1996 and 2006.

Hunter-Paul, who was born in Tokoroa, was captain at 18 in 1996 and the Bulls only had one year (1998) where they failed to make a major final in the following decade.

Now Bradford will start next season in the second-tier English Championship with minus 12 points and a completely new squad of players under Toovey, who arrived in England this week.

A bit of bravado in Bradford's rebirth might be what's needed.

Under Lowe and Chalmers, it starts at Hull KR on February 5. Doubts will linger, and Bradford fans must cross their fingers.

* Joseph Pearson is an English sports reporter based in Hamilton working for stuff.co.nz. His first memory of a Bradford Bulls match is watching the 1999 Super League Grand Final at Old Trafford as a six-year-old, which Bradford lost 8-6 to St Helens.