JOHN Kear was left feeling bewildered after his side's last gasp defeat to Widnes Vikings on Sunday.

Bradford, who could have closed in on a third placed finish with a victory, had their lead snatched away from them at the death as Jack Owens converted a last minute penalty.

The penalty was the final twist of a nerve shredding final five minutes, with both sides seeking a winner at eight apiece.

Danny Brough thought he had won it for the Bulls on minute 79, clipping the ball straight over the posts from a drop goal attempt but unfortunately for the away side, they couldn't hold on to the 8-9 scoreline.

And after the game, Kear spoke of his frustration with Bradford's defeat.

He said: "We've lost the game. All the players are devastated and I'm devastated because we'd won it and we've clasped defeat from the jaws of victory because of our own actions.

"It's one of the few times where I've been lost for words in rugby. We've got a devastated dressing room and it hurts.

"We had the game in our pocket and if we won it, with the results going the way they did, then we would have had third place in our hands but now we are relying on Batley beating Halifax and us winning our final game.

"So again, we've put our fate in other peoples' hands and it's just done."

Kear added: "I thought we'd done enough to win and we had done enough to win on the scoreboard.

"If you're in possession with 62 seconds to go then you should have done enough to win the game and we didn't so that's how it is."

In the incident leading up to the winning Owens penalty, Dan Fleming was penalised for a challenge in the middle of the park which lead to an uproar from where the travelling Bradford contingent were sitting.

But after the match, Kear refused to be drawn into the debate of whether it should have been a penalty.

He said: "I'm not going to get into blaming the officials (For the Dan Fleming incident). We had the game in our pocket and we had possession with 62 seconds to go and we lost it."

Kear did hand out debuts to Elliot Kear and new signing Eldon Myers in the defeat and the head coach was pleased with what he saw.

He said : "I thought they did really well and I was really pleased with them. I thought they brought an energy and a dynamism and overall I was happy with what they brought to the field."

Kear added: "I was happy with the team for 78 minutes and 55 seconds because it's a tough place to come.

"Apparently we've only beaten these (Widnes) once in the last seven fixtures against them and we've had it in our hands to put that to bed but we haven't. "

Post match, Kear was full of praise for his side's defensive efforts, especially given the nature of the defeat against Toulouse in the previous game week.

He said: "We defended great to restrict to Widnes to just the one try. We emphasised defence this week after last weeks showing and they came up trumps. I thought they defended magnificently. We conceded a kick try which was a very well constructed kick try so I was delighted with that."