A dogged defensive display built on guts and commitment proved just enough to guide Hull into the semi-finals of the Carnegie Challenge Cup, at the expense of an out-of-sorts Bradford Bulls at a wet and windy Grattan Stadium.

At the end of a distracting week in which Hull had replaced one coach, Peter Sharp, with another in Richard Agar, Sharp's former assistant, the visiting team repelled just about everything that Bradford had to offer. They were, however, fortunate to survive a 57th-minute decision by the video referee that would have pulled the Bulls back to within four points, had Terry Newton's “try” not been disallowed for offside.

Steve McNamara, the Bradford coach, afterwards refused to enter the debate over whether Hull should have been playing at all, given their fielding of an ineligible player, Jamie Thackray, in earlier rounds, saying it would sound like “sour grapes”. His opposite number, Agar, meanwhile, heaped praise on his players.

“Our defence was quite heroic,” Agar said. “It was a display worthy of this famous competition. Our attitude over the past two weeks has shown a marked turnaround.” Flowing rugby was at a premium early on. Steve Ganson, the referee, saw fit to penalise 16 infringements in the first half alone and dispatched four players - two per side - to the sin-bin in a farcical 14-minute spell just before the break.

No surprise, then, that all the early points came as Iestyn Harris and Danny Tickle swapped kickable two-pointers, until Matt Sing intercepted a loose Harris pass before racing the length of the field. When Todd Byrne then finished off a sweeping upfield move, Hull led 16-6 at half-time.

On the restart, Sing squeezed in for a second try out wide, before Tame Tupou, standing in at prop, barged over to offer the Bulls hope on 54 minutes. With the disallowing of Newton's score, though, serious hope of a fightback was quashed and Paul Sykes's late score proved scant home consolation.

Scorers
Bradford Bulls: Tries: Tupou, Sykes. Goals: Harris 4 Hull: Tries: Sing 2, Byrne Goals: Tickle 5
Bradford Bulls: M Platt; D Halley, P Sykes, S Hape, J Evans; I Harris, B Jeffries; J Vagana, T Newton, A Lynch, D Solomona, J Langley, S Burgess. Interchange: M James, S Finnigan, M Cook, T Tupou.
Hull: T Byrne; M Sing, K Yeaman, G Horne, G Raynor; D Washbrook, A Dykes; E Dowes, S Berrigan, G Carvell, W Manu, L Radford, D Tickle. Interchange: D Houghton, S Wheeldon, T Lee, J Thackray.
Referee: S Ganson.