Wakefield Trinity boss Daryl Powell issues plea after floodlight failure

Last night, Wakefield Trinity came to blows with Wigan Warriors in an enticing pre-season friendly between the favourites to win the Championship and the favourites to win the Super League.

Wakefield fell behind after lovely work from Wigan signing and former Leeds Rhinos star Sam Walters. However, a try from Renouf Atoni as well as a lovely brace from debutant Jermaine McGillvary gave Wakefield a 16-6 lead at halftime.

Wigan pulled back to 16-12 thanks to brilliant play by former Trinity man Ryan Hampshire. Then McGillvary completed his hat-trick to make it 22-12.

However, it was at this point the match was abandoned due to floodlight failure.

Daryl Powell has his say on Wakefield Trinity floodlight failure

Speaking after the game on the club’s YouTube channel, Wakefield Trinity boss Daryl Powell called for people to not focus on the floodlight failure but the game and Matty Ashurst.

He said: “It would be churlish to try and make that the big story. First of all it is Matty Ashurst’s testimonial game and for him it is phenomenal. He has done a great job for the club.

“I think, that has to come first. It was great to celebrate his career and it was great to see so many fans come out for that.

“Then I think we dominated for pretty much all the first half, especially possession and territory. We scored some smarty tries. Defensively I thought we were excellent.

“For the 20 minutes in the second half that was a real battle, it was a really good 20 minutes but we found a way to get some field position.

“So I don’t think it should be about the lights. It is disappointing but the players did what they needed to on the field and I think we learnt a lot of lessons and we can grow again from what we saw tonight.”

Asked, if he was surprised by the performance level from his side at this stage: “Yeah, we’re at the back end of pre-season. If you rewind back to the start of pre-season when we had only one middle unit and we were really skinny in that area. So, if you look where we are tonight, we had to put together a middle unit that has faced up to a really formidable challenge from Wigan and handled it really well.

“From a recruitment perspective we are really pleased with what we have and at a club level we have brought together a good group of people.”