Star's 'wow' factor delights Trinity boss: Daryl Powell hails 'great performance' in Cup win v Leeds Rhinos
Delighted boss Daryl Powell saluted a “great” performance after his Wakefield Trinity side dumped Leeds Rhinos out of the Challenge Cup.
Trinity hit back from eight points down to win the fourth round tie 24-14 and secure a place in Tuesday morning’s quarter-final draw. “They [Leeds] have been playing great so we knew it would be a real challenge for us,” Powell said in his post-match press conference.
“I am made up, so delighted with the players and for the players the way they have applied themselves tonight. I thought we were great, to be honest. All through the game, but our last two second half performances have been exceptional.”
Powell reflected: “Our resilience in the second half was really good and I thought we were better how we finished our sets. Our back-field boys in the second half were unbelievable. We gave too much away in the first half, spoke about it at half-time and I thought they held their nerve a lot better in the second half under a lot of pressure, because nobody else kicks a ball like [Rhinos’] Jake Connor. It comes down with snow on it and we dealt with it a lot better in the second half. I thought that was one of the pivotal things in the game.”
Trinity welcomed back England winger Tom Johnstone from a pre-season knee injury and Powell summed up his contribution in one word: “Wow.” He said: “He was unbelievable, the break he made just before [Matty Storton] scored was phenomenal. There must have been eight tackle-busts in one run.
“He looked great. He hasn’t done a massive amount of training, he has been in and out of looking like he’s going to be fit and then he needed an operation, but wow, that’s some kind of first game back in. I haven’t seen him play that well for a long time. He looked every inch an international player.”
It was a night of drama on and off the field and for a while it looked like the game might be abandoned after the Belle Vue floodlights failed with just six minutes played. Referee Jack Smith took the players off the field while the public address system made an appeal to find the ‘leader of the yellow team’, to the amusement of the 7,136 crowd.
Power was restored after a break of around 25 minutes, but Powell admitted he feared both sides might have to return on Sunday. He said: “That was going through my mind, that was the last thing we wanted to do for the supporters and the players, who get themselves up for a game and mentally ready to go.
“I thought it was a good bit of drama and fun for the fans with the announcements looking for the leader of the yellow team. That was quite funny, then the cheering when the lights came on. It ended up being a bit of theatre; while you don’t want it to be that way, I thought it was quite funny really.”