IT’S fair to say that few people saw Wakefield Trinity’s exit out of the Challenge Cup coming at the hands of Featherstone Rovers on Sunday afternoon.
With the scores level after 80 minutes, Wakefield and Featherstone went into Golden Point before Gareth Gale scooped up a loose ball to run 60 metres and settle the cup tie.
For Wakefield head coach Daryl Powell, he has called on his team to forge their identity, admitting that both him and the squad “don’t really know” what they are about at the moment.
“We are pretty skinny with what we’ve got. We’ve got a couple of injuries which make it harder to select from. We need to look at the make up of our team and how tough we are,” Powell said.
“Playing in conditions like that asks a lot of a team and I don’t think we’ve got the raw ingredients that will make us a really good rugby league team at the moment.
“We need to change things, we need to toughen up looking at the game. We need to improve our decision-making on days like that.
“Are we a pressure team or an expansive team? I don’t really think we know what we’ve got and the boys have to answer that.
“I’ve said to the boys before that we are trying to find out who we are. We have signed a lot of new players and on the evidence we have seen before today, I thought we had a pretty good team.
“I still think that but we’ve got to manage situations better than that.
“We play Bradford on Friday and they will be rubbing their hands watching us here today and we’ve got to respond.”
Will there be any more incomings before Friday’s game?
“Not that I know of, we’ve got what we’ve got. Hoody (Liam Hood) like he’s got a calf problem so he will potentially miss and we have got a couple of other issues.”
Powell admits that being the relegated Super League side lands a target on Trinity’s back.
“There’s expectation and being the relegated team there’s a little bit of a target there because everyone is looking to have a pop at you/
“You know it’s there but you’ve got to deal with it better than we did against Featherstone.”
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