Wakefield Trinity boss Daryl Powell has reflected on yesterday’s second-half collapse against St Helens, as far too many poor tries conceded led to a 46-16 defeat.
Trinity led 16-12 at half-time, but a mixture of bad attitude, low effort and players playing out of position led to the game quickly pulling away from them.
“I think probably the last 10 minutes was probably the worst of all, disappointment-wise,” he told the press post-match. “We just conceded tries, it was a lack of effort, almost at the end, which is unforgivable, really.
“Really disappointing. You could see it in the second half last week, and then the whole game today. I just don’t think we were in a great place, and we just didn’t perform well.
“We took a smack on the nose last week, and we haven’t recovered from that this week. They [St Helens] were desperate, and I just thought they outplayed us today. I don’t think our fight was good enough.
On how worrying that effort in the final 10 minutes was, he said: “I just think it’s something that we’d be really disappointed with. I don’t know any other way to put it.
“It’s hugely disappointing, and I’ve just said to the players, we’ve got to flip this pretty quick because we play Wigan away next week, and it doesn’t get any harder than that.
“If we turn up with that kind of performance, we saw when we played them here that they’re a pretty formidable team, so we’re going to need a fair bit more than we showed today to get anywhere in that game.
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Wakefield have now lost two games in a row to teams in and around the play-off race, and with another one to come, the confidence within the side has certainly taken a hit.
“Well, it’s not a good effect, is it?” Powell said. “I just think the players have to decide what individually we’re going to do about it first, and then it all comes together.
“I don’t think coaches can to be honest. I think the messaging has been the same all the way through the year, and we’ve been pretty consistent to be honest.”
Losing Josh Rourke and Isaiah Vagana was obviously not part of the plan, whilst Tom Johnstone pulled out in the team run the day before the game.
No clear timeframe has been given for any player yet, though Powell is having to arrive at the possibility that Vagana’s season could be over, given how little of the campaign there is to go.
