Daryl Powell’s Wakefield Trinity side lost out 18-12 to St Helens this afternoon, but the boss believes there were more positives than negatives to come from the game.
After being kept scoreless in the first half, Trinity clawed back from 16-0 down to cut the margin to 18-12, which is what the final score would end up being.
Second-half scores from Caius Faatili and Tyson Smoothy gave the side hope, whilst Corey Hall was just inches away from reaching out to score, highlighting just how close Wakefield came from a huge win.
Powell’s men remain third in the league table, but miss out on a chance to go level on points with Leeds Rhinos at the top, a team who they will face next week in yet another massive game.
Reflecting on the defeat though, the Wakefield boss thought the efforts in the first half let the side down, with the team almost getting caught up in the emotion of the big game.
Too often errors were made or last plays went askew, and whilst the side will learn from that going forward, in the short-term it results in Trinity coming out second best in a game that could prove pivotal if the league remains ultra compeitive throughout 2026.
Revealing his post-match thoughts to Sky Sports, Powell was asked whether there were more ups than downs to take from the game, to which he said:Â “Yeah, I think so.
“Just looking at the first half, every break of the game we got wrong, really. I thought so much went against us.
“We gave seven tackles [six agains] away. We tried to intercept, knock on and give possession [away]. We gave an intercept away.
“I just felt like when we got in good attacking positions, the game rattled us a little bit in the first half.”
Explaining how the side will use this game as a learning curve, he said:Â “I was really pleased with the boys.
“I think another dose of confidence, really, in how good we can be. We’ve had a couple of tough games against some of the better teams, Wigan and Saints, but nothing in it.
“I think we’ve shown that we’re good enough to match it on any day with those teams. I think the more we start believing that, then perhaps we won’t have first halves like we had today, which just gives us a little bit too much to do.”
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Leeds Rhinos trip a must win game believes Wakefield Trinity boss
As mentioned, Trinity take on Leeds next week, in another game between two of the competition’s best at this stage.
Wakefield have alreasdy knocked off the Rhinos once this season, dumping them out of the Challenge Cup. Powell believes that if they want to be challenging this season, then the club needed to pick up at least one win from the games against Saints and Leeds.
“We’re not far off,” Powell excaimed. “I think we’ve had an awesome start to the season. If we do get beat, we’re not getting beat by much.
“We’ve got a high-quality team here of really good blokes, but high-quality rugby league players.
“I’m just looking forward to the rest of the year. We’ve got a tough game against Leeds. I think we said in these two games, Saints and Leeds, that we need to come out of them really challenging.
“I felt like we needed to win one of the two. We’ve lost this one, so Leeds is a big game for us now.”
