‘Worst day’ – Daryl Powell on what just happened to Wakefield Trinity

On Saturday evening, Wakefield Trinity lost their first game of the Championship season in what Daryl Powell has now labelled the club’s “worst day at the office in a long time”.

Toulouse Olympique became the first side since Featherstone Rovers back in March to hand a defeat to Wakefield Trinity with Powell’s side on a 17-game winning streak since that Challenge Cup defeat

The French outfit beat Trin 32-4 with the victory leapfrogging them above Sheffield Eagles making for a tight second, third and fourth-place race behind leaders Trinity.

Wakefield Trinity still sit seven points clear and of course with IMG, it’s not all about winning the Grand Final this year but that’s not stopped Daryl Powell from expressing his disappointment at the heavy defeat.

Two days on from the loss, the former Warrington boss has reacted to the defeat and expressed what it means to lose their hopes of an ‘Invincible’ season.

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Wakefield Trinity lose unbeaten record in Championship

Speaking in a video shared by Wakefield Trinity to their YouTube channel, Powell recalled the disappointment as he bemoaned sloppy errors in their defeat at the Stade Ernest-Wallon on Saturday.

“I’m pretty disappointed,” he explained. “I watched it on the plane on the way back. There were quite a lot of things that were unlike us. I thought defensively, we were really poor.

“I still felt at half-time that we could get back into the game and we showed signs early after half-time but then we started making errors again. I just thought they completely outplayed us.”

On what went wrong, Powell noted: “We made 12 errors and they only made six and in those kinds of conditions, that really hurt us as a team.

“It was our worst day at the office for a long time and we’ve got to use it as a springboard now for what we do next, which is obviously the most important thing when you lose a game.”

With such a clear lead atop the Championship and only ten rounds left to do, it’s still highly likely that they’ll top the table and make a charge for the Grand Final which will secure them yet more IMG points, but Powell was left ruing the missed chance to go unbeaten.

“We haven’t lost for a long time now and whilst we would have wanted to have gone on unbeaten in the league, that’s gone now and we have to focus on what we do next.”

They’ll continue their campaign next week when they face Featherstone Rovers, the last side to beat them prior to Toulouse with Fev ending Trinity’s Challenge Cup hopes in golden point back in March.