At the 15th time of asking, Wakefield Trinity finally won a Betfred Super League match on Sunday. The team averaging one try per game crossed four times, including twice after being reduced to 12 men following the sending-off of Hugo Salabio, as they put an end to their 2023 hoodoo at the expense of an increasingly-desperate Leeds Rhinos.
Mark Applegarth’s side remain four points adrift of second-bottom Castleford Tigers but their 24-14 victory this weekend gives them a glimmer of hope that they can stave off relegation, with Andy Last’s men now the worst team in the league on recent form.
Trinity didn’t do it the easy way. After taking a 10-0 lead through Jack Croft and debutant Romain Franco, they were pegged back to 10-10 at the break and then lost Salabio, another making his Wakey debut, to a moment of madness shortly after the interval.
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But that’s when the home side dug in, and further tries from Matty Ashurst and Morgan Smith saw them over the line to the ecstasy of a success-staved Belle Vue crowd. And coach Applegarth told reporters afterwards that the result came down to a collective spirit nobody has given them credit for.
“People have probably been questioning the team spirit behind the scenes, and they have answered quite a few questions today,” he said. “The lads who went out on that field stood up for one another. When we went down to 12 men it would have been quite easy for them to roll over and think ‘Here we go again.’
“Hopefully we can kick on and start putting pressure on the teams around us.”
Having previously averaged six points per game and 29 against, this is a result which will make some review their predictions for Wakefield’s season, although for Leeds it is another unforeseen setback in a campaign littered with them.
The Rhinos are a truly unpredictable bunch. Prior to defeats to Castleford and Wakefield, they were edged out deep into extra time by St Helens in Round 13 having battered Wigan Warriors away from home with just 12 men in their previous fixture. Getting a handle on Rohan Smith’s outfit is about the most difficult thing any pundit or punter could wish to do in rugby league.
Wakey’s win was not the only first for 2023 this weekend either, with Featherstone Rovers’ 100 per cent record in the Betfred Championship finally coming to an end at home to Toulouse Olympique on Saturday.
Sean Long had previously led his side to 13 consecutive victories and amassed a points difference of 444 in the process, making them one of the most dominant teams in any of the British divisions in the first half of any season in recent memory. Yet they came unstuck against a Toulouse outfit who had recently gone down to three straight defeats in what has been a trying return to the second tier after relegation from Super League.
Olympique began the campaign with only 19 confirmed players and have had to rely on a very changeable cast of characters in their bid to return to the top flight, making for a less convincing season so far than most teams generally manage following the drop.
But Guy Armitage and Dom Peyroux crossed twice each and the inspirational Jake Shorrocks was faultless from the tee as Fev were finally taken down after week upon week of dominant performances, including a 64-6 success over Barrow just six days prior. Long pointed to the early loss of former Toulouse half-back Johnathan Ford as a key moment in the game as the home side lost one of their leaders and failed to fire in attack as a result.
If we thought we knew everything we needed to know about potential promotion and relegation in 2023, this was the weekend that has got us thinking again.
*18+ | BeGambleAware | Odds Subject to Change
