Wakefield Trinity boss Willie Poching slams players after falling to important Catalans Dragons defeat

Wakefield Trinity took on Catalans Dragons at Belle Vue this afternoon in a game that could have serious consequences at both ends of the Super League table.

Catalans ran into a 12-0 lead after just eight minutes with Fouad Yaha getting fed by Arthur Mourgue for both scores.

Credit to Wakefield, they hit back through Jamie Shaul when they looked like they were heading for a potential hiding.

Yaha completed his hat-trick in the 27th minute before a moment of controversy hit as Tiaki Chan was sent to the sinbin for a dangerous tackle on Lewis Murphy when it could have been red.

16-4 down at half-time and Trinity had to score first in the second-half and they did just that through Matty Ashurst after the second-rower was fed by a beautiful short Jacob Miller pass.

Two penalties from Mourgue, however, sent Catalans into a 20-10 lead before a late Lewis Murphy try almost put the cat amongst the pigeons before the final whistle went after one last ditch effort by Trinity.

For Wakefield head coach Willie Poching, however, he was not happy at all with how side played in the first-half, slamming that performance.

“The opening stages of the game hurt us and our attitude on playing pressure on the back five, we didn’t have enough about us,” Poching said.

“We had no sting about us. When you’re the passive ones you’re usually on the back foot which happened today, but the most disappointing thing was the lack of respect for the opposition.

“We saw the teamsheet and we had a complacency about us. We relied on a tackle on Lewis Murphy when he landed on his head to fire us up and it shouldn’t have done that.”

Poching even went as far as calling his players out for their effort.

“We’ve lost a bit of momentum there. I called them out on the change of energy and attitude that was required and I questioned their desire.

“40 minutes isn’t good enough against any opposition in this competition, but I was happy with the response to apply our gameplan and defensively.

“We needed to do that for 80 minutes. we needed to start well and we didn’t do that.”

The Wakefield boss still reiterated that the club’s fate is in their own hands.

“We were getting some joy through middle and at times we went away from that. We made some poor decisions tactically and we need to understand why.

“But, it’s in our hands, we put ourselves back in the driving seat last week and we missed an opportunity to extend that gap.”