Bradford Bulls 22–4 Penrith Panthers — 2004 World Club Challenge
McAlpine Stadium, Huddersfield · Attendance: 18,962
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
2004 World Club Challenge: Bradford Bulls 22–4 Penrith Panthers, at McAlpine Stadium, Huddersfield.
Sourcing caveat: Try-scoring minutes and any player-of-the-match award were not identified in sources found. Referee is only single-sourced.
Scorers
| Bradford Bulls | Tries: Parker; Pryce; Swann; Vainikolo Goals: Withers (3/5 conversions); Radford (0/1 conversions) |
| Penrith Panthers | Tries: Priddis Goals: Campbell (0/1 conversions) |
Teams
| Bradford Bulls | Penrith Panthers | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Michael Withers | Fullback | Rhys Wesser | 1 |
| 2 | Tevita Vaikona | Wing | Brett Howland | 2 |
| 3 | Paul Johnson | Centre | Luke Lewis | 3 |
| 4 | Shontayne Hape | Centre | Paul Whatuira | 4 |
| 5 | Lesley Vainikolo | Wing | Luke Rooney | 5 |
| 6 | Leon Pryce | Five-eighth | Preston Campbell | 6 |
| 7 | Karl Pratt | Halfback | Craig Gower | 7 |
| 8 | Stuart Fielden | Front row | Joel Clinton | 8 |
| 9 | Aaron Smith | Hooker | Luke Priddis | 9 |
| 10 | Paul Anderson | Front row | Martin Lang | 10 |
| 11 | Lee Radford | Second row | Joe Galuvao | 11 |
| 12 | Jamie Peacock | Second row (c) | Tony Puletua | 12 |
| 13 | Logan Swann | Lock | Trent Waterhouse | 13 |
| Substitutes | ||||
| 14 | Joe Vagana | Ben Ross | 14 | |
| 15 | Stuart Reardon | Colin Ward | 15 | |
| 16 | Jamie Langley | Shane Rodney | 16 | |
| 17 | Rob Parker | Luke Swain | 17 | |
| Brian Noble | Coach | John Lang | ||
Match officials
| Referee | Steve Ganson (single-sourced — not independently cross-confirmed) |
Match report
Bradford opened the modern World Club Challenge era's mid-2000s dominance with a comfortable win over 2003 NRL premiers Penrith at a wintry McAlpine Stadium. The Bulls raced to a 16-0 half-time lead built on tries from forwards Rob Parker and Logan Swann plus a Leon Pryce score, overwhelming a Panthers side undercooked after a short southern-hemisphere turnaround. Giant winger Lesley Vainikolo added a fourth try to put the result beyond doubt, and Penrith's only reply came from hooker Luke Priddis late on. Michael Withers' boot did the rest. The win made Bradford world champions for the second time and underlined Super League's growing competitiveness against the NRL in this fixture.This match belonged to the modern, annual World Club Challenge era launched in 2000, pitting that season's NRL Premiers directly against the same season's Super League Grand Final winners in a single fixture. The fixture as a whole began as a single unofficial match in 1976 and was repeated only sporadically through the 1980s and early 1990s: it wasn't played at all in 1988, 1990, 1993, or 1995-96, the last of those gaps caused by the Super League War splitting Australian rugby league into two rival competitions. The 1997 attempt to relaunch it as a 22-club, two-conference "World Club Championship" — five Australasian clubs touring Europe and five European clubs touring Australasia simultaneously — reportedly lost more than $5 million and was shelved for three years. It returned in 2000 as the simple one-off match still used today, missing only during the brief 2015-2017 multi-match "World Club Series" expansion (when the marquee fixture still determined the World Club Challenge title, alongside several other NRL-Super League pairings played the same week) and the 2021-2022 Covid-19 cancellations and the 2025 withdrawal by Penrith Panthers. The result here was Bradford Bulls' 2nd World Club Challenge title and the 12th staging of the fixture since its unofficial 1976 debut.