Super League reaction and photos: Wakefield Trinity ‘not good enough’ as St Helens make it three out of three

Tries from Jack Welsby, Harry Robertson, Daryl Clark and Kyle Feldt helped the Saints to a comfortable 26-6 win, with a string of errors and individual mistakes costing Trinity dear.

“I don’t think we played well enough to be honest,” Powell admitted after the game. “I felt we started poor and made way too many errors in good attacking positions, and you can’t do that against St Helens, they are too good defensively.

“I don’t think we ever got to the speed of the game and we had too many players making too many errors and against teams like Saints it is never going to be good enough.

“We started a bit off last week (against Hull KR) but we were good enough to stay in the battle. Second half (today) they just ground us out of the game and we weren’t good enough.”

A few of the errors came from Trin’s outside backs, with Tom Johnstone fumbling a Max Jowitt pass which allowed St Helens to make it 12-6 moments after Isaiah Vagana had got the home side right back into the contest at 8-6.

Powell said: “They just had bad days. Tom in particular will be disappointed, he made a few errors. When you score points what you do next is important - we gave a try away straightaway.

“They are kind of killers for momentum in a game and important lessons for us. I don’t think we deserved to win.”

The game’s first try, from Jack Welsby, came with controversy - with Powell believing there was a forward pass in the build-up.

“The first try is not a try,” he said. “It is criminal to give that. It’s a forward pass. He goes with a try. There’s a range of reasons to not go with a try.

“I still don’t think we win the game because we were never good enough to win the game. We were never really good enough to challenge St Helens and they’re a good side. We were in amongst for a fair while but we weren’t clinical or good enough to beat them today.

“You have to pressure St Helens to score points.”

It is the biggest challenge, however, that Saints have faced this season having inflicted heavy defeats on Salford and Castleford Tigers.

But Powell wants his players to “learn” from this defeat.

He revealed: “Some key lessons to learn from us in quite a few key areas. We are going to lose games, we have just got to make sure that we learn from it.

“We have seen enough to see we’re going to be a good side but the players have got to play well.

“We are fighting to find our identity and our toughness, mentality-wise, has to improve, because I don’t think it is quite where it needs to be yet.”

Take a look through these photos, by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com from Wakefield Trinity’s Round 3 defeat at home to St Helens