'We are ready to move to next level' says Wakefield Trinity head coach Daryl Powell

With big wins against two amateur sides in the Challenge Cup and a rebuilding Newcastle Thunder team in the 1895 Cup it has been a record-breaking start to the season for Trinity, but the head coach now wants to see what his team is capable of against stronger opposition.

He said: “Hunslet were pretty good and threw some tricky bits at us, but mentally we are ready to move to the next level really.

"We've got Barrow next week and I’ve watched them. They got beat by Oldham, but they throw a fair bit at you and we are ready for a new challenge.

"I don’t think we were ever that great (against Hunslet), but we didn’t need to be and sometimes motivation-wise that’s a little bit awkward.

"We won the game convincingly, but we move on, slide that under the table review-wise. I won’t look into that in too much depth.

"They started well and they’ve got some big boys who make it tough physically. They defended some of our better players really well and full credit to them, they had a real dig at us.

"We made too many unforced errors in the second half. I’d like to have seen us being a little bit cleaner, but I get it from a players perspective, you want to be challenged.”

Powell added: “We want to see how good we can be. We’ve had a couple of tests – we played Wigan and they were really strong in the forward pack and the York game where we were outstanding and were mentally challenged.

"I think we know what we’ve got, but I want to really know what we’ve got and we’ll get into these games that are going to really test us, starting with Barrow and on the horizon the Challenge Cup again and Bradford then Featherstone in the league.”

The cup win came at a cost with the loss of Toby Boothroyd to a shoulder injury that could keep him out of action for some time.

Powell explained: “It looks like he’s completely ruptured his AC joint, which is a pretty horrible injury.

"I had a separation in mine when I played and it’s not a great injury so he’ll probably have to have that repaired and will spend a decent amount of time out.”