Wakefield 30-32 Leeds

Wakefield Wildcats threw away a 14-point lead as Leeds stunned the hosts with a superb fightback.

Wildcats’ coach John Kear will have been upset with his side’s display, self-destructing after supposedly having the game under control.

Twice they turned down the opportunity of taking a penalty goal when Brent Webb was sin-binned for a professional foul late on, and were made to pay as a result.

Jamie Jones-Buchanan got the visitors on the scoresheet just eight minutes into the match, but a converted Matt Blaymire try plus two penalty goals by Danny Brough gave the hosts a slender lead.

Keith Senior squared things up again, but the games swung back in favour of the Wildcats when Matt Petersen scored.

Despite a brief setback with Rob Burrow scoring his first try of the night shortly after the break, Wakefield dominated the second half in a game they really should have won.

Brough added another penalty, before Scott Grix and Ryan Atkins added on further tries to give the home side a comfortable looking 30-16 lead.

Leeds were rattled by their position, and found themselves continuously on the backfoot with ill-discipline and a significant amount of handling errors.

Wakefield were gifted two penalties consecutively in good positions, and were ordered to take the two points by Kear, but much to his dismay the side chose to run the ball.

And the resulting factor was that they were punished in a final quarter-hour blitz.

Firstly, Ali Lauitiiti showed superb footwork to sidestep his way over, and Burrow grabbed his second with two minutes remaining to tee up a superb finish.

The home side fell apart with seconds remaining and it was left to wingman Scott Donald to finish the job and complete the comeback, after Leeds broke the Wildcats ranks again.