Daryl Powell blasts ‘appalling’ Wakefield Trinity amid injury blows

Daryl Powell branded Wakefield Trinity’s effort against St Helens as ‘appalling’ in what was a costly evening for his side in pursuit of a first-ever Grand Final appearance.

Wakefield were thrashed 46-16 by St Helens, damaging their top-two hopes considerably in the process.

It was arguably their worst performance of the season as Wakefield capitulated after the break, with their performance not aided by first-half injuries to Isaiah Vagana and Josh Rourke.

But Powell refused to use them as an excuse as he said: “I just thought our effort was appalling today.

“I thought we did alright until halftime, but I still thought it was a fractured performance. We went on the back of the second half for last week a little bit, but we’ve got a bit of work to do to turn us around. It’s easy to flip the way a team’s feeling, and we don’t feel too great about ourselves at the moment.

“I think the way we ended that game as well is not us. We’ve got a bit of work to do there, but we’re getting a chance against Wigan next week, so you can’t turn that up. I just thought it was so un-us in the way that we’ve built ourselves to be.

“The tries at the end… you can lose a game, but you don’t lose it like that. So, I think that’s what we’re most disappointed about.
I thought St Helens played with a lot of spirit today, but I just thought we gave away way too much there at the end, and that’s never a good sign. We got rattled at the start. We lose a full-back, we lose a back-rower, but they’ve got people missing all over the place, so there’s no excuses there.

“We’ve just got to flip it on its head as quick as we can and move on into next week. But, yeah, we’ve got some decent words about that one, I reckon.”

Powell reiterated that it was the nature of some tries that disappointed him the most.

“We conceded some tries that, you know, a desperate team probably doesn’t concede, I’d say that. I wouldn’t say we waved the white flag, but there won’t be great viewing those tries that we’ve conceded at the end. And then, you know, we’ve just got to cop it. We’ve got to cop it and learn from it.”