Bradford Bulls and Greece serve up thriller as ex-Warrington Wolves man proves hero and star NRL halfback misses chance to win it

This weekend has been a brilliant weekend of rugby league as countries prepare for the World Cup with warm-up games.

Yesterday we saw England defeat Fiji with ease 50-0 as Jamaica were stunned by Cumbria 28-12.

Meanwhile today, England Knights beat a World Cup ready Scotland 28-6 with Josh Thewlis scoring four tries for Paul Anderson’s Knights. Tonga meanwhile beat France 48-12 with David Fifita scoring three tries as Leeds Rhinos signing Justin Sangare scored for France.

Wales were beaten by Lebanon 38-22 and later tonight in an emotional night Leeds Rhinos host the number one ranked side in the world New Zealand.

However, Leeds weren’t the only club side to host World Cup opponents with Bradford and Greece serving up a classic at Odsal this afternoon.

The Bulls raced into a 22-0 lead with Kieran Gill getting the points scoring off to a start in three minutes twisting and turning over with young George Flanagan Jr converting.

10 minutes later Gill raced away for a second after a lovely move left prior to a Micky Hoyle try in the 16th minute as he went through a gap to score.

By the 20-minute mark, the Bulls led 22-0 and Gil had a hat-trick. Not the prettiest try, but they all count as he hit a short ball to crash over.

Greece winger Nick Mougious got the visitors on the board a minute later before Theodoris Nianakis scored from a lovely kick to make it 22-12. That was the halftime score of a strange first 40 which was initially dominated by the Bulls before Greece got back into the contest.

Then a player familiar to Super League fans, former Warrington forward Billy Magoulias, raced through a gap to score a minute into the second 40 with South Sydney star halfback Lachlan Ilias converting to make it 22-18.

However, Bradford re-established their 10-point lead when Aidan Scully capitalised on an error from a David Gibbons kick. Gibbons got a try of his own on the hour mark from a wild offload to make it 34-18.

With 14 minutes to go, Bradford looked like they’d won until Peter Mamouzelos of the Rabbitohs scored off a break to score.

After this things began to spiral out of control for the Bulls as Gill was sin binned for dissent and Adam Vrahons scored from the subsequent gap to make it 34-28 as Ilias missed his first conversion of the game.

Then Magoulias proved the hero for Greece with two minutes to go crashing under the sticks enabling Illias to level matters.

As the game drew to a close, Gibbons missed a drop goal attempt and Greece were awarded a penalty in kicking range. Ilias went for two but missed leaving the scintillating game level.

Perfect build up for an exciting World Cup.