Super League champions Bradford ran riot to easily regain the two points docked by their salary-cap breach and pile on the agony for relegation-threatened Castleford.

The Bulls won at a canter, running in nine tries against a Tigers side that still looked to be in shock from their club record 72-4 hammering by St Helens five days earlier.

Three of the tries were scored with Castleford down to 12 men, firstly through the sin-binning of Peter Lupton and then from the dismissal of Jason Payne nine minutes from the end for a high tackle on Stanley Gene.

The two points restored to Bradford's tally ensured a top-four finish for the defending champions but Castleford remain deep in trouble at the other end of the table.

The early-warning signals were posted by Bradford's juggernaut winger Lesley Vainikolo, who took a pass from his centre Shontayne Hape and proved unstoppable from close range to open the scoring on eight minutes.

Castleford, who gave a Super League debut to back rower Michael Knowles and a second outing to teenage prop Payne, put themselves under pressure by conceding a series of penalties.

They showed brief signs of resistance when winger Deon Bird won the race to Danny Brough's neat grubber kick to claim a try after earlier dropping the ball stretching for the line.

Second rower Willie Manu also lost possession close to the line but Bradford took a stranglehold on the match with two tries in 10 minutes.

First impressive second rower Chris McKenna skipped out of an attempted tackle from Castleford captain Danny Nutley to touch down and then centre Ben Harris weaved his way through some more flimsy tackling.

Paul Deacon converted all three tries to extend his side's lead to 18-4 and the visitors' plight worsened when loose forward Peter Lupton was sin-binned three minutes before half-time for persistent interference in the tackle.

When Lupton returned, he found his side even further adrift after they conceded two tries in his absence.

First Ben Harris surged through for his second, just 47 seconds after the re-start, and then substitute centre Karl Pryce collected Iestyn Harris' long kick to race away for a try.

At 28-4, there was no way back for Castleford and it got worse when winger Adam Fletcher made a mess of collecting a loose ball behind his own line and gifted a try to Bulls second rower Brett Ferres.

Deacon was twice off target with his goalkicks but he was quickly back in the groove to convert Bradford's next try from substitute Stanley Gene, who made light of some more paper-thin tackling to force his way over from close range.

Pryce added a second, courtesy of a 50-metre interception, but Fletcher made amends for his howler by racing on to Ryan McGoldrick's kick to claim his side's second try.

A disappointing night ended on a disastrous note for the visitors when Payne was shown the red card and Bradford once more took advantage of the extra man for Brad Meyers to crash over for the game's final try, to which Deacon added his sixth goal.