Wakefield Trinity cautious ahead of contest with rock-bottom Leigh Centurions
Trinity will take the confidence gained from back-to-back victories into tomorrow’s visit of bottom club Leigh Centurions
Having suffered nine consecutive defeats, stretching back to last October, Trinity have been transformed by the return from injury of several influential players.
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Hide AdThe likes of Bill Tupou and captain Jacob Miller have made a significant difference and another big name, England winger Tom Johnstone, could feature tomorrow, for the first time since suffering concussion, for the second successive game, two months ago.
“Things are certainly looking a lot brighter than they did three, four or five weeks ago, when we couldn’t get our best side out,” said Trinity coach Chris Chester.
“It’s nice we’ve got a bit of continuity now; our halves are playing well together, we’ve also got Kyle Wood back from injury and some guys – like Bill Tupou, Reece Lyne, Tinirau Arona and Joe Westerman – who are in really good form.”
Leigh have yet to win since being chosen to replace Toronto Wolfpack in Super League and parted company with coach John Duffy this week.
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Hide AdDuffy’s assistant Kurt Haggerty will be in caretaker charge tomorrow and Chester knows it is a dangerous time to play Leigh.
“They will probably see it as a good opportunity for them to get their season up and running and we’ve got to make sure their season doesn’t start on Sunday,” warned Chester.
“The biggest thing for us is we don’t go into this game complacent.
“That is our biggest challenge, we have had two really good wins, we backed up a really good performance against Hull KR and it’s important we back up another big performance against Huddersfield.
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Hide AdChester reckons his players’ “togetherness” has been at the heart of their upturn in form.
He said: “These guys have been working their backsides off all pre-season and the last seven weeks and they probably deserved something out of some of the games.
“We have definitely turned a corner with regards to how we are attacking; we are keeping it pretty simple and it’s no coincidence we’ve got our best players out on the pitch and we are performing better than we did in the first or five weeks.
“I think we’ve turned a corner defensively as well.
“We’ve found that resilience and toughness and it’s a confident group at the moment.”
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Hide AdChester added: “We always knew it was going to be a tough start for us.
“We’ve had to go to Hull, Saints, Leeds twice, we’ve had to play Wigan and we’ve played Catalans.
“We got up and running two weeks ago against Hull KR and backed that up with a stronger performance last week.
“I expect more of the same this week and another strong performance.”
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