Kear delight at defiant response as Wakefield blitz French

The Wildcats headed into the match boosted by local businessman Andrew Glover’s takeover of the club on Thursday, but having been docked four points on Friday as a result of going into administration.

However, they showed no signs of distractions as they stormed into a 14-0 lead, and Kear was keen to deflect any praise aimed at him for the impressive win.

“I think you have to applaud the players tonight,” he said.

“It’s been a hell of a week. We’ve lost three senior players from our squad for various reasons, and our financial problems have been well documented in the local and national media, but we have a new owner now which will offer us some off-field stability.

“The players trained marvellously on Thursday and we travelled over here on Friday and we managed to have a good little session this morning – just a very light one – but you could tell there was something there amongst the players.

“Intensity and focus were both there and I think the performance tonight reflects that.”

Kear revealed the Wakefield game-plan was to stay close to their hosts for as long as possible.

“I thought Catalan started the game well and we got into the arm wrestle well and I think you need to compliment Catalan for how they started,” he said.

“We had our own little targets to be in the game at certain points and we managed to grab a breakaway try which calmed one or two people in the camp down,” he said.

“From then on, although Catalan had their spells, I thought we dominated.”

Tries from Frankie Mariano and Kevin Penny and three goals from Josh Vievar gave the Wildcats a 14-8 half-time lead, and a further Mariano score along with a Chris Dean double stretched their advantage after the break.

With Catalan struggling to offer any threat, Wakefield ran away with the game late on thanks to further tries from Kieran Hyde and Luke George. Vievar added two goals.

The hosts’ only efforts came from Sebastien Raguin and Cyril Stacul, with Scott Dureau adding two goals and a penalty.

A clearly disappointed Catalan coach, Trent Robinson, reflected: “You can’t win a game when you complete your sets as poorly as what we did tonight.”