Photos and reaction: Championship leaders Wakefield Trinity ‘back on track’ after derby day win over ‘patchy’ Featherstone Rovers

Trinity, whose 100 per cent Championship record was shattered last weekend in Toulouse, returned to winning ways in style against their local rivals Fev - the first game at Belle Vue between the two outfits since 1998.

Doubles from Josh Bowden and the excellent Lachlan Walmsley, efforts from Jermaine McGillvary, Jack Croft and Derrell Olpherts, and a try-of-the-season contender from Oliver Pratt did the damage in a 46-18 victory - although Rovers did pull the score back to 18-12, after being 18-0 down, just after half-time before Wakefield clicked back into gear.

Trin’s head coach Daryl Powell said: “It was a really important game for us to get back on track and I thought we started with great intent. Our attitude was like night and day from last week. That was really pleasing.

“I thought there were some really good periods where we looked like a really high functioning team both with and without the ball. The period just before half-time and just after was a little bit of a disappointment. After that I thought we grabbed hold of the game pretty quickly.

“It’s a big win for us. It’s Featherstone, it’s a local derby, it’s big for the fans, so that’s important and it gets us straight back on track which I was really pleased about.”

Ford commented after the Round 17 contest, which sees Fev slip down to seventh and out of the play-off spots:

“Congratulations to Wakefield. They were the better team today by a fair bit. I thought we were really patchy. There were parts of the game where we were hard to beat and there were parts where they came through us and we offered no shape.

“The thing that is so disappointing is that we were so naive. Tackling people in the air, knocking kick chasers over, offloading the ball and there’s absolutely nobody around you, being in front of the bloke who is going to pass you the ball, passing the ball forward - there is just a collection of really, really poor aspects of the game which put us under pressure or didn’t allow us to put Wakefield under enough pressure.

“It is really tough at the minute. We will come through this patch. We have got to pull together and build towards the back end.”

Check out these photos from Wakefield Trinity’s derby day delight at home to Featherstone Rovers.

Fan photos as bumper crowd sees Trinity beat Rovers in first competitive meeting at Belle Vue in 26 years.