Daryl Powell tells Wakefield Trinity to toughen up mentally after off day against St Helens

Trinity were given something of a reality check by St Helens on Saturday after positive performances against Leeds Rhinos and Hull KR.

Wakefield struggled to match Saints' intensity in an error-strewn performance as they suffered back-to-back defeats for the first time under Powell.

Last season's Championship treble winners round off a challenging opening month at Warrington Wolves on Sunday.

Asked if he had seen promising signs in the early rounds, Powell replied: "One hundred per cent – as long as you learn from these kinds of games.

"St Helens have started well. They're in a good spot and are attacking well. We were in amongst it for a fair while but we were just never clinical enough or good enough to beat them.

"We have seen enough (in the first few rounds) to believe we're going to be a good side – but your players have got to play well. Our better players not playing well is not going to do the job.

"The better teams can maybe get away with it a little bit. We're fighting to find our identity, and our toughness mentality-wise has to improve because I don't think it's quite where it needs to be."

Wingers Tom Johnstone and Lachlan Walmsley were off-colour, making seven errors between them on a difficult afternoon for the pair.

Powell is hoping his team will be better for the experience.

"They just had bad days," he said. "Tom, in particular, would be disappointed – he made a few errors.

"One of the key things for us is what we do next after scoring points. We kicked out on the full and conceded a try straight away against Hull KR and we scored points and gave a try away straight away again. They're killers for momentum in a game.

"There are some important lessons for us. I just don't think we got used to the speed of the game and had too many players making too many errors. Against teams like Saints, that's never going to be good enough.

"We’re going to lose games but we've got to make sure that we learn from it."