July 2, 2017

Trinity move within touching distance of top four

Wakefield Trinity got back to winning ways with a resounding 26-12 win against Warrington Wolves at the Beaumont Legal Stadium, moving them level on points with fourth placed Salford.

Trinity’s defence was outstanding for the majority of the contest and Kyle Wood led from the front with some fierce tackling and speed out of dummy-half.

After tries from Bill Tupou and Ben Jones-Bishop, and three goals from skipper Liam Finn, the home side were deservedly 14-6 at half-tim, despite Brad Dwyer crossing for Wire early doors.

Both teams showed clear intent to make their mark on the game right from kick-off and it was the home side who were granted the first chance. After a couple of penalties conceded by the Wolves, Wakefield opted to get the scoreboard ticking over and Finn made no mistake to put Trinity 2-0 ahead.

The Wolves soon marched downfield, though, and opened their scoring account when Dwyer proved too strong to stop on the line, crashing over from dummy-half. Stefan Ratchford added the conversion to give Warrington a four point lead at 2-6.

Man-of-the-match Wood was key in Trinity getting back into the game and just minutes later his offload was collected by Tupou, who raced away to score to the left of the posts. Finn converted to make it 8-6 in Trinity’s favour.

Trinity showed plenty of attacking motive in the early exchanges, camped deep within Warrington’s half for a large chunk. But after another penalty conceded by the Wolves, Finn decided to extend Trinity’s lead and calmly slotted over the two points.

From then on, Chris Chester’s men seemed to be in the driving seat and a special play from Sam Williams, sending a looping pass out wide to Ben Jones-Bishop put Trinity in a comfortable position, leading 14-6 half-time.

At the start of the second-half, Trinity picked up exactly where they left off and soon added to their lead. A couple of good carries from the forwards laid the platform for Wood to pinch one from close range, almost a carbon copy of Dwyer’s effort for Warrington in the first-half. Once Finn added the conversion to make it 20-6, you’d think only one team would go on to win.

Things didn’t run quite as smoothly though and Warrington were given a glimmer of hope when Keegan Hirst was sin-binned by referee Mr Hicks. The visitors then made their numeric advantage count shortly after, as skipper Chris Hill forced his way over under the posts. Ratchford successfully converted to shorten the deficit to just eight points. 20-12.

Trinity had to show plenty of patience and resilience to weather the Warrington storm and then when Finn got his hands on the ball close to the Wolves’ line, his sheer class was there to see and his right-to-left shift put it on a plate for Mason Caton-Brown to seal victory for Trinity and put an end to a two game losing run in Super League. Finn then added the conversion to put Trinity three scores ahead and seal a comfortable 26-12 victory.