Wakefield Trinity boss looking for big improvement as Super League play-offs bid goes down to the wire
Head coach Daryl Powell has told his Wakefield Trinity players they must improve fast or they can ‘forget’ about the Super League play-offs.
Trinity missed a great chance to give themselves some breathing space in their straight battle with Hull FC for a sixth place finish in the Betfred Super League when they lost to local rivals Castleford Tigers.
Victory over opponents coming into the game second from bottom would have taken Powell’s men three points clear of Hull with just two games to play, but Wakefield now face the prospect of possibly having to win both of their final matches to make the top six.
And the first of those games this Saturday is against a Hull KR side looking to clinch the League Leaders’ Shield in the match.
Trinity go into the crucial contest in their patchiest form of the year with Powell not sure which team is going to turn up from week to week in the recent games.
They played their part in a thrilling local derby at Cas, but were way below the high standard they have set themselves this year according to the head coach.
"We’ve just got to play better than that,” said Powell. “Individually I thought we were really poor, which you’ve got to ask a couple of questions on why that was and why Castleford probably wanted to win that game a little bit more.
"Their desperation to do things was better than ours and that’s disappointing. I didn’t expect our performance to be that lacking in accuracy and energy really.”
On where that puts Trinity in their season, Powell added: “We’ve lost a game there that was a pivotal one in our season but it’s still there for us, I just think we’ve got to improve.
"Obviously the outcome is hurtful to us. If we win our last two games it’s still in our hands. But if we are going to play like that, you can forget it. We were way off our standard.
"I don’t think it matters who we play against, if we turn up like that I think we’ll find it difficult.
"We’ve been good at times this year, at the back end of the year, but I just feel like we’re going from poor performance to good performance back to poor again. We need to find the answers to that quick or it’s going to peter out by the end of the year, which will be really disappointing.”