Daryl Powell's honest assessment on Wakefield Trinity defeat to Wigan Warriors: 'They were really good and we were really poor'

Reigning champions Wigan ran in eight tries through Adam Keighran, Bevan French, Zach Eckersley (2), Junior Nsemba, Jai Field, Liam Marshall and Sam Walters to seal a dominant 44-2 win at the Brick Community Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

Powell admitted Wigan were more than worthy winners, whilst he felt his side looked ‘game-shy’ – a week after their scheduled Round 22 clash with Salford Red Devils was cancelled, with Trinity only playing two games in August thus far due to the aforementioned Salford cancellation and Round 20’s split fixtures.

"We just gave way too much away in the first half, which was the sort of game really,” said Powell.

"I felt like we started pretty well, we got into good field position, we dropped the ball at the play-the-ball, which you just can’t do against Wigan, those sorts of things.

"I thought we’d won the first battle. I thought our attitude was great at the start, and our defensive resolve was great at the start, but they got us with a couple of kick tries, which is smart play from them. Max (Jowitt) gets held up at a play-the-ball; they shift it, and the first two tries are difficult to defend against.

“We just kept giving things away, we were either giving penalties away at the ruck, or another play-the-ball error. We were 57 per cent set competition in the first half, and they were 91 per cent territory in the first half. If you are going to win a game against Wigan, you aren’t doing it with those sorts of stats, so I just thought we were poor.

“We were just talking about it in the changing rooms about what we do to get ourselves connected back up. Individual players have got to play well to enable the team to play well; there is no point putting your hand up if you’ve dropped a play-the-ball; it’s happened, hasn’t it? I think there was too much of that from us, basic stuff.

“We’ve come back from that break way too loose, and I just think we’re game-shy if I’m honest. I think we’ve gone from week off, game, week off, game… I just think it’s not ideal, to be honest, and I don’t think it’s helped us, so we’ve got to find our way out of that now.

“We’re playing some consecutive games now, we’ve got Huddersfield next week, which is a pretty key game for us.

"We weren’t great today, a bit of perspective applied, I think, from where we’ve come from, where we’re at, and it’s all about we’ll learn some lessons, but what are you going to do next? What does the next four weeks look like? Because you can talk about this until the cows come home, but coming here and winning is pretty tough, it always has been, and always will be, but what are we going to do over these next four weeks? That’ll define where our season is.

"We’re not going to start getting rattled too much by this because I thought they were really good today, and I thought we were really poor, so I think that just about sums it up.”