Willie Poching admits Wakefield Trinity were 'way off' defensively against Wigan Warriors

Poching admitted his team’s defence was too easily opened up as Trinity fell to a 54-10 defeat at a Wigan Warriors side determined to bounce back from their derby defeat to St Helens on Friday

The Warriors ran in nine tries with speedy Australian backs Bevan French and Jai Field and former Leeds Rhinos forward Brad Singleton scoring two each.

Winger Abbas Miski and half-backs Harry Smith and Cade Cust also crossed the line with Smith converting all nine tries.

Wakefield actually scored first through Thomas Minns, but by the time half-back Jacob Miller added their second try the game was well and truly over as a contest.

“Defensively, we were way off," said Poching after the game.

"We tried to address some of that at half time, but we didn’t quite get a stronghold on what we wanted to do at the start of that second half. They were doing quick offloads and by play three they were on halfway. They had the ascendency for a while.”

It did not help Trinity's chances that they lost Kelepi Tanginoa to the sin-bin in the first half.

Poching added: “Difficult as it was, it was more difficult with 12 men. To lose Kelepi before half-time was tough. They were 24 points already when we had 13 men.

“There were some moments too often when we couldn’t get a quick play-the-ball. It was a physical thing and an attitude thing. Full credit to Wigan; they were fantastic.”

Wigan head coach Matt Peet said: "It's always a challenging game on Easter Monday after playing on Good Friday and the way we went about it was very professional.

"We went about it the right way. We were direct and committed in our defence. We were willing to do the tough stuff and in the end it paid off.

"The big thing was the commitment and the energy. Wakefield put us under quite a bit of pressure early on, but our resilience during that period bode well for the rest of the game."