LEIGH BEATTIE slammed his Bradford Bulls side for contributing to their own downfall with “too many errors and dumb plays” after seeing Oldham steal the spoils with a stunning try three minutes from time.

On-loan Castleford centre Keiron Gill scored a try-of-the-season contender to give the Roughyeds a 26-22 victory at Bower Fold, having trailed from the 13th minute to the 77th, coming back from 14-6, 20-12 and 22-20 down.

But rather than focus on that match-winner, caretaker coach Beattie said the Bulls paid the price for their own deficiencies throughout, the result leaving them four points off zero still, having begun term with a 12-point deduction.

“It was the same story for us – errors and not being good enough,” he said, after a fourth defeat in eight Kingstone Press Championship outings, and arguably the most disappointing after last week’s demolition of Dewsbury.

“If you cough the ball up, and do stupid little chip-over kicks, you’re not going to win games. It’s as simple as that.

“If I could tell you why they make so many errors, we could fix them up. But everything they do are coach-killers aren’t they.

“I thought a lot of the forwards got through some graft. But you can’t win games when you make as many errors and dumb plays as we’ve made.

“Some plays they haven’t even practised. If they want to make stuff up and turn the ball over, they’re going to get beat.”

He added: “If we’d have scraped it, it would have been a different tale, but we would have got away with it. Every game we play we make too many errors. You can’t win games if you make that many mistakes and go away from stuff. It’s that simple.

“We have to be better than that. We have competed but we need to be better to win the game. It’s all right competing but we’ve walked away with 'nowt'. You can’t drop simple balls and you have to complete sets if you want to win games.”

Asked about the mood in the dressing room, he said: “Well they’re not singing songs and playing the jukebox.”

Match-winner Gill had earlier been penalised for a high tackle on Jordan Lilley which took the on-loan Leeds half-back off his feet.

Asked if Gill should have still been on the pitch, Beattie said: “I’m not going to say that as it’s a waste of time. I can’t comment on that.”

Oldham boss Scott Naylor, the Bradford legend as a player, said he felt for his old club – or rather that he would do – after their late agony.

“I will feel for them,” he said. “Right now I’m immensely proud to have coached the team that beat them.

“I have a fantastic bunch of lads and these are the kind of days we all work so hard for, the days you do it all for. Last week at Batley are the dark days, these ones are the fantastic days, and that’s why professional sport is so addictive.

“My heart will always be with Bradford but I will worry about them tomorrow. I always want them to be massively successful so there are mixed feelings but I’m so glad for my own players to get that win.”

Oldham, whose previous league win came on the opening weekend of the season, had crashed 50-10 at Batley seven days earlier, but this victory gives them breathing space to the drop zone.

Naylor added: “It was a fantastic response by my team after that defeat and it’s a great day for the club, beating a club the size of Bradford.

“We’d wanted to be in the game after 70 minutes and then to steal it. Things don’t always go to plan but it was our day.”