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Sykes eager to exact some revenge on Wakefield Wildcats’ return to Twickenham Stoop
Wakefield Wildcats stand-off Paul Sykes does not have fond memories of Twickenham Stoop.
The 31-year-old made his Wildcats debut at London Broncos last year, after completing a loan switch from Bradford Bulls, and suffered a 36-0 loss.
It was arguably Wakefield’s worst performance of the season and the only time they failed to get on the scoresheet in 2012.
Sykes, unfortunately, remembers that day well and he will be part of the Wildcats squad looking to make amends for that loss this weekend.
“We’ll be looking to avenge that result last year,” he said.
“I know it’s in the past but we want to right the wrongs of last year.”
Wildcats will go into the game in confident mood thanks to the morale-boosting victory over Hull KR on Saturday night.
But last year’s loss in the capital also came on the back of a similar encouraging win over Catalans Dragons - something Sykes is well aware of.
He is also well aware Tony Rea has built a competitive squad capable of troubling any side on their day.
“They’ve got a lot of pace in the backs and they have some smart players,” commented Sykes.
“I think they’ve had to rotate their squad a bit through injuries so they’ve probably not had time to gel and get the first squad out.”
He added: “We just didn’t turn up last year, we’re aware of that and we spoke about what happened last year, but we’re going to go down with the right attitude and on the back of a win.”
Sykes did not enjoy suffering defeat on his return to former club Bradford Bulls on the opening day of the season but says the improved showing against Hull KR last week, which resulted in a 36-20 victory, will give his teammates a much-needed shot in the arm for the trip down the M1.
“We needed last week, we needed that performance,” he said.
“We know we can score tries and it was just the defensive work in the tackle that we had to work on that let us down a bit at Bradford, but we put it right against Hull KR and we’ve trained all week to do the same again.
“It’s amazing what you can do when the forwards lay a platform for you, it makes our jobs as halves a lot easier.
“We can get to the ball a bit more and put the outside backs into space. If you don’t get much go-forward it’s hard playing on the back foot. It’s what all halves want from their forwards.”
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Weather for Wakefield
Friday 24 May 2013
Today
Light showers
Temperature: 5 C to 10 C
Wind Speed: 30 mph
Wind direction: North east
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Sunny
Temperature: 7 C to 17 C
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