Warrington withstood a barrage of pressure before finishing with a flourish to condemn Steve McNamara to a losing start as Bradford coach this afternoon.

The Wolves secured a tight contest at the Halliwell Jones Stadium as tries from Paul Wood, Martin Gleeson and Lee Briers broke the engage Super League champions in the final 10 minutes.

Gleeson finished with two tries, as he did in the Wolves' equally hard-fought 22-18 victory over the Bulls at Odsal a fortnight ago.

The Bulls' only points came from a Marcus Bai try, the visitors' difficult week after losing coach Brian Noble to Wigan ending in disappointing defeat.

The two sides went into the game having scored 19 tries between them in crushing victories in their previous outings and proceedings were eventful from the onset.

Warrington managed to take control in a frantic opening 15 minutes that saw two players sin-binned, two tries scored and another disallowed.

Bradford hooker Terry Newton was the first player shown the yellow card after just two minutes when he was mistakenly penalised for a high shot on stand-off Briers by referee Ashley Klein.

It was only Newton's second match back after a 12-game ban and perhaps his reputation went before him as it appeared team-mate Brett Ferres was the guilty man, Briers having been caught in the throat.

The Wolves did not dwell on Newton's sense of injustice and immediately capitalised on his absence with Briers sending Gleeson over for the opening try.

Ferres escaped punishment after another high tackle, this time on Logan Swann, minutes later but Warrington were soon reduced to 12 men themselves after Mike Wainwright tried to prevent Bradford restarting the game quickly.

The Wolves maintained the pressure, however, and claimed their second try when Briers' deep kick through the posts was pounced on by Ben Westwood just in front of the dead-ball line.

Briers added the extras but the Bulls responded as Iestyn Harris caught Wolves winger Richie Barnett out of position with a looping pass out wide and Bai collected to power over.

Warrington took a 10-4 lead in at half-time and missed a chance to extend their advantage early in the second period when Briers pushed a penalty shot wide.

Briers was also off-target with a couple of drop-goal attempts but the Wolves were determined to cling onto their lead and gave Bradford little room for manoeuvre.

The home side produced some ferocious defence, not least when Newton broke clear from a Stuart Fielden knock back and was hauled down on the line by Barnett and Paul Rauhihi.

The Wolves needed to soak up more pressure but eventually managed to relieve some of the tension when Briers slotted a drop goal at the third time of asking in the 69th minute.

It proved the breaking point as from the next possession the Wolves moved swiftly downfield and Jon Clarke put Wood over by the posts for the decisive try.

Gleeson then broke from 20 metres to score and put the game beyond doubt and Briers, who kicked three goals, wrapped matters up with the final try in the last minute.