Bradford Bulls' assistant coach Brian Noble today supported James Lowes after the stand-in skipper was sin-binned twice in his side's incident-packed win over Halifax at The Shay last night.

The Great Britain hooker has been shown three yellow cards in successive matches but Noble insisted that he is the man to lead the team in the absence of the injured Robbie Paul.

"I think Jimmy is the right man for the job and the club stands by him," said Noble after the Bulls' 25-18 win.

"If you look at the two incidents, while he was a bit vociferous in arguing his cause, I think he had some justification in some of the calls against him.

"If you look at his disciplinary record, you have to go back to the beginning of 1998 when we last had some problems with Jimmy and they've not surfaced since then."

Lowes denied he was abusive to referee Steve Ganson and claimed he was seeking an explanation for a penalty award when he was sin-binned for the first time just three minutes into the match.

The Bulls hooker said: "There's a new directive about talking to officials.

"I think they've gone from one extreme to the other - you haven't to say boo to them.

"I'm not happy about it, but you've just got to take it on the chin and get on with it."

Halifax, who held the Bulls to a 20-20 draw a month ago, again pushed them all the way and Noble said the club were relieved to get the points.

"It was a real struggle," he admitted. "Every time we come to The Shay it has been like that.

"We've got the two points and we're extremely pleased about that."

Halifax included five teenagers following the loss of Andrew Dunemann and Jamie Bloem through injury and the axing of Darryl Cardiss and Marvin Golden as a disciplinary measure.

Bulls coach Matthew Elliott said: "I thought we were magnificent at Wigan last week and got nothing. This week we were nowhere near our best and came away with the win.

"I think it told us more about what not to do in the play-offs than taking any real positives from the game."

Henry Paul is pictured scoring for the Bulls at Halifax yesterday.