Wakefield Trinity hold on for hard earned points after late Toulouse fightback fuelled by controversial decisions

Daryl Powell’s men hit nowhere near the heights of their brilliant attacking display against Catalans Dragons the previous week as they took on the competition’s other French team, Toulouse, but had enough about them to bring back the two points with a 22-18 win in red hot conditions.

As they had done in their previous three games Trinity once again started slowly, but came from 8-0 down to lead 22-8 and looked set for a comfortable win only for some big decisions to go against them and hand Toulouse a way back in the contest in the last 14 minutes.

The home team had failed to take advantage of some big chances created in the game and looked to have missed out again when Josh Rourke came across to try to stop a kick through and Jake Trueman got back to clear the loose ball over the line.

Referee James Vella had the incident looked at for a possible – and highly unlikely – penalty try and video referee Tom Grant ruled that the Trinity full-back had made contact with the opposition player, but it was only a penalty.

However, although Rourke was committed to making a tackle and could hardly stop himself from making some kind of contact he could not believe it as he was harshly sin-binned as well as being penalised.

This gifted Toulouse the way back into the contest they had been looking for and they quickly took advantage of their extra man as their danger man Olly Ashall-Bott went over for his ninth Super League try of the season.

It was controversial again when they took real advantage of Wakefield being without a recognised full-back. A high kick was not dealt with by Corey Hall and Ashall-Bolt pounced on the loose ball to score.

Referee Vella ruled no try as Hall appeared to be obstructed in his efforts to get to the ball and Grant initially agreed before changing his mind after numerous looks at the incident and saying Hall initiated contact with the Toulouse man.

Another huge decision had gone the hosts’ way and alarm bells were ringing when one try quickly became two for the hosts as two minutes later Paul Ulberg had an easy finish after taking a looping pass that caught out the stretched Trin team.

With just four points between the teams it was anyone’s game now and the French side created another great chance late on only for Oliver Pratt to make a great saving tackle on Benjamin Laguerre as he looked to cross in the corner.

Toulouse had made the better start to the game earlier on and looked dangerous early from their first set. They opened the scoring with a Jake Shorrocks penalty and after several near misses and one great saving tackle by Trueman they scored their first try in the 17th minute as James Roumanos went over.

But Wakefield dug in and after Jayden Myers had a try chalked off they responded with four unanswered tries to seemingly take the game away from their hosts.

The first of them came from Pratt when he produced a fine diving finish reminiscent of Tom Johnstone’s usual finishes to end a move involving half-backs Trueman and Mason Lino.

Trinity then levelled the scores when Lino’s short pass had a hint of a forward look about it, but gave Caius Faatili the chance to power over to add to the three tries he scored against Catalans. With Rourke kicking the conversion they were ahead at 10-8.

That became 16-8 in the second half when Tyson Smoothy’s quick pass near the line gave Jazz Tevaga the chance to spin and blast over for a try to which Rourke added the extras.

It all looked comfortable when Seth Nikotemo scored the try of the game in the 57th minute. Mike McMeeken’s smart pass sent Rourke on a 50-metre sprint downfield and Hall continued the move with a pass that led to the back rower charging over.

Rourke’s third conversion made it 22-4 and there seemed no way back for the home team before the late controversies made for a tense finish.