Bradford hang on to deny Leeds top spot

Round-up

Leeds missed their chance to go back to the top of Super League when they lost 10-6 in controversial circumstances at Bradford. Level at 6-6 at half-time, the Bulls took the lead through a Rikki Sheriffe try that required intensive video scrutiny.

Leeds thought they had salvaged at least a draw through Danny McGuire, but the video referee, Thierry Alibert, ruled out the score for a marginal knock-on to give Bradford their first home win of the season.

Wakefield produced a strong finish to see off rivals Castleford 35-6 in a keenly-contested West Yorkshire derby. The Wildcats, who led just 8-0 at the break, scored 19 points in the final 13 minutes at The Jungle to secure an ultimately comfortable victory. Ryan Atkins finished the match with two tries while Tony Martin, Matt Blaymire and Martin Gleeson also touched down. Castleford's only try came from Joe Westerman as they rallied early in the second half but Wakefield proved too strong.

The former NRL star Liam Fulton showed he is a model professional by scoring on his debut to help Huddersfield beat Celtic Crusaders 30-10 in a tepid encounter. Australian Fulton, who has posed nude for Cosmopolitan magazine to raise money for cancer and children's charities, reacted quickest to a loose ball and slid over the line for a try on 49 minutes. Brett Hodgson's conversion made it 18-4 as Adam Peek had given the visitors hope at the start of the second half by powering over after intercepting Hodgson's attempted pass to Martin Aspinwall.

The closest that the Crusaders had come to scoring before then came in the first half when misplaced passes twice let them in – but the Giants' defence recovered to stop them short of the line.

Huddersfield led 12-0 after the break thanks to two converted tries from David Hodgson which were both set up by Kevin Brown. The stand-off supplied the final pass in a flowing move to allow Hodgson to power over in the corner on seven minutes.

David Hodgson was then first to react to Brown's clever kick-through and he crossed the line unchallenged on 27 minutes.

Crusaders had a lucky escape just before the break when a David Faiumu kick-through bounced off a Celtic player and into the arms of Paul Whatuira – but he could not ground the ball before carrying it out of play.

In the second half the sides traded tries and then Anthony Blackwood finished off a Crusaders' breakaway started by Damien Quinn on 60 minutes after they had done well to resist heavy Huddersfield pressure.

But Huddersfield went on to comfortably record their sixth Super League win of the season with late tries from Brown and Michael Lawrence to leave the visitors still searching for a first league win.