Bulls too strong for Cats

Craig Kopczak scored a hat-trick as Bradford eased to a 40-18 victory over Wakefield, despite a slow start from the Bulls.

The Wildcats attacked with vigour from the off and after forcing the Bulls into a goal-line drop out, Wakefield's early pressure deservedly brought them the first try in the fifth minute.

The ball was worked out to Tommy Lee on the right and his quick pass allowed Frankie Mariano to escape the clutches of two Bradford defenders before going over.

Three minutes later, though, once breaks from Michael Platt and Shaun Ainscough had put the hosts deep in Wakefield territory, it was only a matter of time before the Bulls levelled matters.

And so it proved when Brett Kearney fed Tom Olbison, who burst through a stretched Wakefield defence to touch down.

Marc Herbert, making his debut for Bradford, was then inches away from getting his hands on Matt Diskin's grubber before Shad Royston went over unchallenged in the 17th minute after superb handling on the left from Gareth Raynor and Patrick Ah Van.

Bradford weathered a heavy spell of pressure, in which Glenn Morrison dropped the ball after crossing the line, but they scored two quick tries to take a comfortable lead at the break.

First, Danny Addy's short pass allowed fellow substitute Kopczak to crash past a weak tackle from Josh Veivers and over the line in the 34th minute.

The ever-impressive duo of Addy and Kopczak combined once more for Bradford's fourth score of the afternoon two minutes later - the former's offload allowing Wales international Kopczak to go in.

With Ah Van adding the extras from every try and Veivers converting from the Wildcats score, the hosts took a 24-6 lead at half-time.

Any thoughts of a one-sided second stanza were quickly dispelled, though, as the visitors made a bright start to the second half, just as they had in the first, but more solid defending from Bradford prevented them from narrowing the deficit.

Handling error

And Bradford made the Wildcats pay for wasting several chances as, after Luke George had made a handling error to gift them possession, Shad Royston collected the ball from Platt to go over in the 61st minute before Ah Van added the extras.

To their credit, the visitors did not stop battling away and after Josh Griffin had plucked Herbert's kick from the air, the centre ran the length off the field before teeing up Luke George to cross four minutes later.

Ainscough put paid to any hopes of a comeback in the 68th minute with a try, touching down Herbert's neat grubber kick.

Ah Van failed to convert for the first time, but Kopczak crossed for his third try seven minutes from time.

Wakefield did grab a consolation try on the hooter as Kieran Hyde crossed and Veivers converted.