Wakefield Trinity head coach Daryl Powell has offered insight into the fitness of his squad and explained why one key player didn’t feature last week.
Powell has plenty of experience in West Yorkshire derbies given his previous roles as coach at Leeds Rhinos and Castleford Tigers, and he’s made a strong start to such games as Wakefield Trinity boss.
The Trin won two of their three games against Castleford last year, however, they did lose when playing at the Tigers’ home, where Sunday’s game is.
One major positive for Powell is that Wakefield are relatively healthy but the head coach did admit that two unnamed players had picked up knocks in training.
Asked how his squad, which will be named at midday on Friday, could look, Powell said: “Pretty much the same, I had a couple of boys just got slightly hurt in training today, I don’t think they’re too bad, they’re just knocks, so we’ll check on them before we name the squad.
“We’re not too far off, we didn’t pick up anything from last week’s game, so we’re fortunate there. We won’t be too dissimilar.”
Wakefield Trinity boss challenges forward to bounce back
Despite Super League being in an apparent injury crisis, Wakefield are one of the lesser-impacted clubs and for Powell, that means taking advantage of their health and depth.
“I think you look across quite a few teams and there’s a number of players missing, and we’ve been fortunate there, touch wood it continues,” he said.
“You have seasons like this where you don’t get too much and you never know what’s around the corner, but you just make hay while the sun shines I think is important.”
One man who did miss out last week in the win over York Knights was second-rower Seth Nikotemo but Powell confirmed there was no injury there, revealing that to be a decision made on form as he challenged the forward to bounce back.
Powell explained: “I felt like there were a couple of areas in Seth’s game that he just needed to tidy up, and we’d had Matty Storton.
“If people are playing well, then there’s a fair chance they’re going to keep their spot but if they do drop off a little bit then while we are healthy it’s easy to then slot somebody back in.
“I think the challenge there is for players to be consistent across their time on the field. That was Seth’s (situation), I just felt like he needed to tidy a few bits up.”
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