Platt inspires Bulls fightback

12 April 2012

New boy Michael Platt grabbed an impressive hat-trick of tries as Bradford Bulls staged a magnificent recovery to beat Warrington 36-20 and make it two opening wins in the engage Super League this season.

Full-back Platt, snapped up from Castleford Tigers, took the honours as the Bulls fought back from 14-6 down just before the interval.

But it was far from a one man show as the Bulls dug deep to stun the Wolves who, boosted by last week's win at Wigan, went ahead with Lee Briers' penalty after 12 minutes for Jamie Langley's offside.

Paul Rauhihi was impressive up front for the Wolves and his pass to Rob Parker sent the former Bulls forward charging upfield for Briers to send Ben Westwood over for his first try to open up an 8-0 lead.

Bradford hit back with Platt's first touchdown with Michael Sullivan guilty of slack defence. But it was Briers calling the shots for Warrington with his perfectly-weighted kick allowing Westwood to grab his second try and open up a 14-6 lead after 34 minutes.

Bradford struck back and were not to be denied just before the break with Joe Vagana's offload and Iestyn Harris' pass sending Australian new boy Glenn Morrison skipping past Jon Clarke, Stuart Reardon and Briers - with Paul Deacon's second conversion cutting the interval deficit to 14-12.

The Bulls drew level when Briers' dropout failed to travel 10 metres and Deacon slotted over the penalty. Deacon's 40-20 then set up the chance for Morrison to create a try for Vainikolo in the corner and fire Bradford ahead for the first time.

Worse followed for Warrington after 55 minutes with Chris Riley slow to react to Harris' kick and James Evans accepted the gift to open up a 24-14 lead.

Bradford made it three tries in eight minutes with Platt starting and finishing a slick move also involving Langley and Morrison and were then reduced to 12 men when Sam Burgess was sin-binned for holding down with Warrington immediately responding when Chris Leikvoll charged over - and Briers' conversion reduced the arrears to 30-20.