'Competitive' Wakefield Trinity are keeping feel good factor going at Belle Vue

​As the teams go into the second half of the campaign Trinity have won seven and lost seven and sit in seventh place in the table.

Only two of those defeats were not in close matches as with a little more luck Wakefield could have had more points than they have accrued and the performances in 2025 have continued the feel good factor that emerged last year following Powell’s appointment.

"We've had half a season now and been class in that," said the head coach.

"We want to get better now and continue to show how good we can be.

“We’ve been really competitive – if we have lost games, they’ve been pretty tight.

"We’d want to flip them a bit, if we’d won some of those tight games we’d be in a lot better position than we are now, but I think we’ve learned a lot of lessons. There’s been a real growth of belief in what we can do.”

"I'm looking forward to playing St Helens again because they are the team who got away from us a little bit. There's been a real growth of belief in what we can do."

Powell is proud of the efforts of his players as they have defied a hefty injury list.

He added: “We’ve got a decent list when you look at who we’re missing – it’s been two halves and five or six forwards, but the other boys are doing the business.

“We’ve got players who are dropping into new situations all the time, people like Seth (Nikotemo) and Caius (Faatili) for example.

“With every passing week this group is growing a little bit more confidence.

“We’ve ended up having a better squad than we thought we had at the start because some players have had opportunities to show themselves off. Guys like Josh Rourke has taken his opportunity and Harvey Smith has played more games than he potentially might have done and they’ve taken those chances.

“That’s been the biggest positive out of the difficulty we’ve had.”