Bradford Bulls 38 Wakefield Trinity 28: Lucky 13 as Godwin brings an end to Bulls' run

Twelve straight defeats had already shattered any hopes of Bradford reaching Old Trafford on October 2, but Wakefield still harboured faint hopes of gatecrashing the end-of-season play-offs by finishing eighth, ahead of Castleford Tigers and Brian Noble's Crusaders.

But defeat in a points-fest at Odsal yesterday – throwing away a 12-0 lead to trail 32-12 – finally killed off that dream and brought an early end to the season.

After Crusaders defeat at home to St Helens on Saturday evening, it means now Castleford need to match or better what Crusaders do in the final round of games to clinch eighth spot. The Tigers visit St Helens while Crusaders are at home to Hull KR.

The Bulls – who have revealed 60 season tickets for next year if they can reach 10,000 pledges, "It's a recession busting price," said chairman Peter Hood – finish their campaign at leaders Wigan, before they welcome in a new era under incoming coach Mick Potter.

"I'm pleased and the boys are as well," said caretaker coach Lee St Hilaire. "I'm pleased that we did it at home in the last game of the season to send the fans home happy as well as ourselves.

"The two penalties we gave away led to two tries.

"The boys then said 'hang on a minute', we've got to start performing.

"I thought they did that and Wayne Godwin came off the bench – he lit us up – and we came in with a comfortable half-time lead."

The last time Bradford won was back in May at Belle Vue against the Wildcats, but 12 straight Super League defeats had seen the Bulls slide down the table.

And the omens didn't look good for avoiding a 13th loss when Danny Kirmond strode over in the opening minutes for a Trinity try, before Sam Obst kicked through for a Darryl Millard try.

With the influential stand-off Paul Cooke missing, Ben Jeffries converted both to make it 12-0.

It wasn't that Bradford didn't have enough possession, they just kept choosing the wrong option or dropped the ball in promising attacks.

But there was nothing wrong in the move which brought the home side's opening try for Brett Kearney.

Centre Paul Sykes broke through the Wakefield defence, and Kearney was on his shoulder to finish off.

Rikki Sheriffe was close to adding a second try moments later after a lung-bursting drive down the right, but was well held by Damien Blanch.

It heralded a spell of impressive pressure from the Bulls, scrum-half Danny Addy at the fore, with first Steve Menzies then Michael Platt held just short in front of the posts.

Wakefield's defence finally cracked to allow Andy Lynch to crash over for a try.

Sykes converted both Bulls tries to level the score at 12-12, before his 34th-minute penalty edged the hosts ahead.

A resurgent Bradford side now looked dangerous every time they had ball in hand, and stretched their advantage when Godwin joined in the scoring with two tries before half-time. Sykes added the conversions as Bradford trotted off to a rare standing ovation from the long-suffering home fans.

From 12-0 down, Bradford had scored 26 unanswered points to stun the visitors.

Substitute Elliott Whitehead grounded a bouncing ball to score the hosts' fifth try after 50 minutes, Sykes adding the extras, to leave John Kear's team shell-shocked.

It took a fabulous individual try from Obst to halt the 32-point blitz.

He picked up the ball 10 metres out, and with little support, collected his own chip to score.

That sparked the Wildcats into life as former Bradford player Glenn Morrison crashed over for a try. Jeffries kicked both conversions to cut the deficit to 32-24 with 20 minutes left.

A Menzies breakaway try, converted by Sykes, settled any Bulls nerves as Jeffries failed to add the conversion to Sean Gleeson's try.

The full-time hooter was greeted with an amazing standing ovation by the Odsal faithful, relief mixed with joy, as the number 13 proved to be lucky for Bradford.

Wildcats boss Kear admitted that his side performed poorly after initially taking the lead.

He said: "Well obviously, we were the architects of our own downfall.

"It was in the quarter before half-time that we went from 12-0 up to 26-12 down and we just made error after error – early tackle errors and then late tackle penalties and that just killed us.

"The Wayne Godwin try before half-time gave us one score too many to fight back from.

"They did play some good rugby, they did entertain the fans and they did show some fightback (in the second half) but it is a very disappointing afternoon for us."

Bradford Bulls: Halley, Sheriffe, Platt, Sykes, Crookes, Kearney, Addy, Scruton, L'Estrange, Lynch, Worrincy, Langley, Menzies. Substitutes: Godwin, Olbison, Kopczak, Whitehead.

Wakefield Trinity Wildcats: Murphy, Kirmond, Johnson, Millard, Blanch, Jeffries, Obst, King, Rinaldi, Korkidas, Demetriou, Morrison, Leo-Latu. Substitutes: Gleeson, Leaeno, Ferguson, Moore.

Referee: R Hicks (Oldham).