Steve McNamara hailed his side’s defensive qualities after they inflicted a rare defeat on one of Super League’s form teams.

Warrington had won seven of their last eight games but were squeezed out 21-10 on their home turf yesterday by impressive Bradford.

It was sweet revenge for the Bulls’ 58-22 embarrassment two months ago and McNamara admitted: “I think the time when we played at Odsal we were in a bit of a flat spot and they were probably in a similar type of situation themselves here.

“They’ve had a tremendous run in the league and the cup and at some stage it catches up with you.

“We gave ourselves too much to do defensively, particularly in the first half.

“Warrington really tested our try line but we came up with the answers and there were plenty of big performances.”

Glenn Morrison made a try-scoring return after missing the last nine matches with a wrist injury while Dave Halley was outstanding at full back.

“For Glenn to play 69 minutes on his first game back in those conditions was pretty impressive for me,” McNa-mara added.

“Dave went really well too but I think the whole back three did.

“Warrington kick the ball really well and have players in the side who can test you with kicks.

“Fortunately for us, Lee Briers suffered an injury. It restricted them slightly but our back three caught most of the balls on the full, returned very well and got us on the front foot at the start of some of our sets.”

Craig Kopczak gave a huge display off the bench at prop while Elliott Whitehead, 19, also impressed in only his second game.

Their efforts proved McNamara made the correct decision not to play Sam Burgess, who had featured for England against France in Paris on Saturday night.

The forward had played for the majority of the clash in Paris but returned yesterday morning, travelled with the Bulls squad and wanted to back-up. “There was a lot of talk about Sam and whether we would play him or not play him but I’ll never risk a player’s health,” said the Odsal chief.

“We’ve monitored his work loads over the last couple of months. He’s a young boy, he’s not got any injuries and we’ve been knocked out of the Challenge Cup and have no extra games.

“So I thought the opportunity was there to play him but watching him yesterday morning and assessing him we decided to go without him.

“Craig Kopczak stood up and Elliott Whitehead got some big game time.

Those decisions can work for you and they did yesterday; it was the right decision to go without Sam and I’m sure he’ll be fit and ready to go for next week.”

The Bulls entertain St Helens on Sunday bidding to do the double over Mick Potter’s side while making it three wins on the bounce.