Bradford Bulls were left counting their bruises after a pulsating 12-12 draw with title rivals Wigan Warriors sent them back to the top of the league last night.

In front of a midweek Super League record crowd of 17,365 at the JJB Stadium the game's big guns could not be separated after a nervous and enthralling 80 minutes.

But the Bulls, who went into the game with several walking wounded after another thriller against St Helens five days earlier, came back over the Pennines with even more injury problems.

Stuart Spruce (knee), Scott Naylor (ankle) and Justin Brooker (broken hand) all missed out on the chance to take on the Warriors, Michael Withers throwing himself into battle despite having no match practice since hurting his leg after his two-try Murrayfield display in April.

Now coach Matthew Elliott has added Brad Mackay and Mike Forshaw to his casualty list.

"Brad has a suspected fracture of the wrist. It seems to be the week for broken bones this one," he said.

"Mike Forshaw sustained a hip injury, but I don't know the full extent of that at this stage. The rest of them just have a few lumps and bumps."

The knocks could lead Elliott to field a severely weakened side against Huddersfield-Sheffield Giants on Sun-day with youngsters Rob Parker, Paul Sykes and Alex Wilkinson in the frame for a first team chance.

Wilkinson came close to earning his full debut last night, but was held back as a non-playing substitute as his team-mates dug deep to hold on to a share of the points.

Elliott said he was proud of his side's resolute performance. "I'm not delighted with the way we played, because we didn't play the smartest footy, but the effort the players put in was phenomenal," he said.

"I'm just so proud about how they were prepared to work for each other. I think we can build the rest of our season on the character and effort shown.

"Unfortunately we need to start building with a match on Sunday and I have some people in bits in the changing room. I would rather not focus on the result because I would rather have settled for two points than one. Wigan also put a lot of effort in, but I thought our boys were magnificent."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.