Wakefield Trinity 32 Wigan Warriors 0: Thrashing of Wigan shows quality of Trinity once again
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Hide AdThat matched their achievement in 2009, which was also the last time they ended the year ahead of Warriors on the table.
Trinity were knocked out of semi-final contention when St Helens beat Salford Red Devils on Thursday night.
Hull’s win over Castleford Tigers 24 hours later secured third place and meant Wigan would need to beat Trinity by 90 point to finish fourth on points difference, ahead of Saints.
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Hide AdEffectively that made the clash at Beaumont Legal Stadium, Belle Vue, a dead rubber.
Wakefield were strong in defence and played some good rugby in the second half once they had made the game safe.
Wigan looked as though they couldn’t wait for the season to end and to get on to the beach and rarely threatened to Trinity’s line..
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Hide AdWakefield led 12-0 at the break and added three more tries in the second half to complete a dominant display.
That was despite Trinity being reduced to 16 fit players after just two minutes when Anthony England suffered a head injury.
He was replaced by David Fifita, who was then involved in a tackle which led to Wigan’s Joel Tomkins being sin-binned for alleged dangerous contact.
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Hide AdThe opening try came from the penalty, Liam Finn’s pass sending Ben Jones-Bishop over at the corner.
Finn landed the first of his five conversions and then put in a kick which Jacob Miller collected to scored the hosts’ second touchdown.
Danny Kirmond preserved Trinity’s 12-point lead with an outstanding tackle on George Williams and Wakefield went three scores ahead through a Finn penalty goal after interference by Frank Paul Nuuausala on Miller.
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Hide AdSam Williams went over from acting-half after his 40-20 kick had set up another attack and Scott Grix raced in for a fine try off a one-two with Jones-Bishop.
That came after Wigan’s Anthony Gelling had forced his way over the line, only for video referee Ben Thaler to rule the try out for an obstruction by Tom Davies on Mason Caton-Brown.
In the final moments Sam Williams could have scored himself, but instead passed to Keegan Hirst who crossed for his first try of the season.