Steve McNamara saluted his team's fighting spirit after they battled back to avoid a nightmare loss against Huddersfield.

The Bulls looked in danger of heading for a third successive defeat yesterday as they trailed 30-24 in the latter stages at the Galpharm Stadium.

But three tries in the final eight minutes from Marcus Bai, Shontayne Hape and Sam Burgess saw Bradford rescue the situation and collect a confidence-boosting 42-30 win ahead of their elimination play-off at home to Salford on Saturday.

The champions had been in total command at 24-6 before an alarming collapse enabled Huddersfield to go within a whisker of clinching a first-ever Super League success against the Bulls. McNamara admitted: "At 30-24, I thought how could we dominate a game so much both defensively and offensively and then be behind on the scoreboard?

"There were a few lapses in our concentration which enabled Huddersfield to put themselves in a winning position but we dug ourselves out of it.

"We've been talking about responding to adversity during games when things go wrong and we bounced back, so I couldn't be more pleased."

After recent setbacks against Harlequins, Wigan and Wakefield, victory was certainly much-needed and there were signs of the Bulls returning to form.

"It was very important," said the former Huddersfield player-coach.

"We gain massive encouragement from the way we responded. We've been down on confidence and received criticism left, right and centre but that was great. We then learned a lesson when we took our foot off the gas and a couple of senior players came up with errors but we stayed strong and responded to adversity.

"Iestyn Harris, Paul Deacon and Terry Newton masterminded a lot of points for us, so it's great to have them back in form, while Mick Withers was outstanding as well."

Bulls season-ticket holders will receive a £2 discount for the Salford game if they book before 5.30pm on Friday, while those in the Tetley's main stand have until Wednesday to guarantee their own seat.

  • Bradford target David Solomona has decided to see out the remaining two years of his contract at Wakefield after the club completed their great escape from relegation.

The Kiwi second-rower was throught to be ready to sign for the champions if the Wildcats went down.