A second Paul Deacon field goal in the dying seconds averted a near-disaster for the Bulls as they beat Warrington 28-27 at the Halliwell Jones yesterday.

The Bulls raced to a 22-6 half-time lead through tries to Jamie Langley, Lesley Vainikolo, Shontayne Hape and Iestyn Harris but they fell apart in the second half and it took Deacon's last-gasp heroics to keep their grip on second place with one match of the regular season remaining.

The Wolves opened the scoring in the third minute through Ian Sibbit but were then cut apart by the rampant defending champions, who ran in three tries in five minutes.

But what had been a stroll in the park for the Bulls turned into a nightmare when the fired-up Wolves pegged back the 16-point deficit. Graham Appo, Dean Gaskell, Brent Grose and Paul Wood all crossed as the Wolves hit the front with ten minutes remaining.

The Bulls stormed back with a scintillating individual try by Harris and then retook the lead with Deacon's 75th-minute field goal. Briers locked up the score with a field goal of his own before Deacon showed incredible composure to slot the winner with time all but up on the clock.

Bulls coach Brian Noble praised his players' courage in coming through with the victory but privately he would have been seething at the careless second-half display.

"I am delighted for the players," said Noble.

"In that last five minutes they showed that play-off type character that we will need. They believed in themselves."

Being delighted for his players is different that being delighted with and Noble is sure to be driving home some tough messages ahead of Friday night's showdown with St Helens.

"We put some ball down in the second half from good positions and that was the difference," said Noble.

Wolves coach Paul Cullen lamented the first-half storm that hit his side and eventually cost them the match.

"We got hit in a whirlwind five minutes," said Cullen. "For 75 minutes we were the better team. That five minutes cost us the game."