Wakefield Trinity boss Daryl Powell welcomes rare luxury ahead of Leigh Leopards clash

Australian hooker Tyson Smoothy is poised to return against Leigh Leopards on Friday night, leaving half-back Mason Lino as the only frontline absentee.

Powell has had the luxury of weighing up his options ahead of the round five clash.

"It's probably been the most difficult (team selection) for a fair while," he said.

"We had a lot of injuries to deal with last year and a lot of periods when the selection was pretty easy.

"It's certainly been tougher this week and I'm hoping it stays that way. Every coach wants that.

"There have been a few decisions and some of them are quite difficult to make."

Jack Sinfield is an example of a player who began the season on the fringes before quickly making himself undroppable.

Powell expects Wakefield to be better for the friendly competition.

"All I want from players is to pressure people that are in the team," he added. "Then we’ve got a really vibrant training atmosphere that gets the best out of everybody.

"I think we've got that at the moment. We've got a high-quality group of people first and players second. We want to keep that vibe and intensity."

Trinity are fresh from a season's best performance against Leeds Rhinos, a win that booked a Challenge Cup quarter-final date with Wigan Warriors at Belle Vue.

Powell has called for a repeat showing on his side's return to league action.

"I said to the boys after training – it is about consistency for us," stated Powell, who watched his team edge Hull FC the previous week.

"We've seen some signs of that over the last couple of weeks. It's about maintaining that level and improving as well in a couple of areas.

"I think just knowing what you are going to get from a group is huge – and we're getting closer to that.

"If we can chalk another performance off, I think we'll start to see the growth of a team that can really get after the season. If you know what you're getting every week, you're in a good place."

Leigh also have a cup quarter-final to look forward to next month after seeing off Hull FC in the last 16.

Their league form has been poor, however, with a run of three straight defeats.

Powell has tuned out the early noise surrounding Adrian Lam's depleted side.

"One of the dangers with teams when you're hearing what's going on there injury-wise is that you listen to all that," he warned.

"The starting team that'll be rolling out against us is a really strong one. The bench has been impacted a bit but those guys are all good quality rugby league players.

"You see so many times where teams who are down on troops go on and win games. I don't think you can take anything for granted. We had something similar when we beat Wigan here last year so I don't think it matters.

"We need to focus on ourselves, not worry too much about what Leigh are doing and go and play the game we want to play."