Chris Hicks holds on to give Warrington the win over Bradford

For long periods of a captivating quarter‑final, Warrington's grip on the Challenge Cup was as tenuous as Chris Hicks's one‑handed hold on the ball as he dived to touch down a Michael Monaghan kick in the 62nd minute. Somehow, the Australian wing maintained control to claim the crucial try less than an inch inside the dead‑ball line, and those four points sent the Wolves, rather than the admirably brave Bulls, to within 80 minutes of Wembley. Hicks's try gave Warrington a 26-16 lead, but that deceptively comfortable margin lasted less than two minutes, as his former Manly team-mate Steve Menzies responded with an equally brilliant individual score. "We made tough work of it, but our opponents wouldn't lay down," said the Wolves coach, Tony Smith, summing up a memorable match in a misleadingly prosaic sentence. He refused to draw any comfort from the even greater fright Warrington had endured at the same stage of last year's competition, when they needed an extra-time drop goal from Lee Briers to beat Hull KR on the way to the club's first Wembley win for 35 years. "We're going to have to improve a lot no matter who we draw if we're going to retain, or even go close to retaining." However Leeds, St Helens and the Catalans Dragons will all be wary of a Warrington team who have discovered the priceless ability to win these big matches, at least in this competition. In the early stages they had threatened to repeat their 60-point rout of Huddersfield in the previous round, with Briers and Ryan Atkins scoring tries to establish a 12-0 lead inside 14 minutes as Bradford struggled to cope with their expansive attacking game. But the lure of Wembley, which had persuaded several of the Bulls' experienced players including the former Manly scrum-half Matt Orford to line up against medical advice, drew a spirited response, and by half-time only a long-range breakaway score for Vinnie Anderson – set up by Monaghan, yet another ex-Manly man – kept the Wolves ahead at 18-16. Rikki Sheriffe, Chris Nero and the lively full-back Dave Halley had scored Bradford's tries, and only the defensive excellence of the Warrington full-back Richie Mathers denied them another. Mathers then caught Michael Platt napping on the blindside to set up a simple first try for Hicks in the 43rd minute, but there was nothing straightforward about the Australian's winner. Bradford lost their young Cumbrian forward James Donaldson with a suspected snapped cruciate ligament in the frantic closing stages, and Australian reports suggest that Orford is keen to go home at the end of the season, despite the Bulls' denials. It can be such a cruel game. Bradford Bulls Halley; Sheriffe, Menzies, Nero, Platt; Sykes, Orford; Scruton, L'Estrange, Lynch (capt), Whitehead, Hall, Donaldson. Interchange Godwin, Worrincy, Kopczak, Wardle. Tries Sheriffe, Halley, Nero, Menzies. Goals Sykes 3. Warrington Wolves Mathers; Hicks, King, Atkins, Riley; Briers, Bridge; Morley (capt), Monaghan, Harrison, Solomona, Westwood, Grix. Interchange Higham, Cooper, Mitchell, V Anderson. Tries Briers, Atkins, V Anderson, Hicks 2. Goals Bridge 3. Referee R Silverwood (Dewsbury). Attendance 7,092.