Wakefield Trinity ready to relax after 'getting monkey off their back' with first win
Wakefield Trinity boss Daryl Powell hopes winning their first Super League game of the season will help his side relax more for their next game at Warrington Wolves on Saturday.
Powell admitted he was nervous at the finish as Huddersfield Giants came right back at his team in the closing stages and only narrowly lost 18-16 after they had been 18-4 down.
He also felt his players had been nervous and the anxiety had prevented them from playing their best rugby.
He said: “I went to see my father-in-law – he’s had a pacemaker fitted – and I reckon I might go in for one myself after that!
"When you have control you stay in control, but I think we gave control to Huddersfield and unravelled ourselves.
"We looked nervous last week, probably around expectation of what we did last year, and we were nervous again, especially when it came down to the tight period at the end.
"We have to chill ourselves, play our game and not get rattled by the difficulties the game’s presenting at the moment.
"Keeping your composure and calmness and playing with confidence is going to be important.
"There were lots of positives for us, but also some things you can’t do in the game.
“We’ve got the monkey off our back with the first win of the year and hopefully now we’ll relax a little bit.
"There’s some tough challenges coming up, but we got this done and we needed to win this week.
”We did enough really without being fantastic and settling down a lttle bit will come from this.”
Powell was pleased with some aspects of his side’s play.
He added: “We defended a lot better, we were a lot stiffer, a lot harder to score against and harder to make metres on.
"We did some smart things with the ball. We didn’t execute in the way we would want, but there’s some new players in the team and we’re piecing it together.”
Powell wants to see his team step up now, but is expecting a big challenge at Warrington when they will face a rested team who did not play last weekend due to opponents Hull KR being occupied in the World Club Challenge.