WAKEFIELD TRINITY head coach Mark Applegarth has refused to blame a spate of controversial calls for Wakefield Trinity’s loss to the Catalans Dragons at Belle Vue tonight.
Tom Johnstone returned to his old stomping patch to haunt his former side with a hat-trick, but his second try proved controversial.
The winger leapt through the air to take a big Cesar Rouge kick, but appeared to knock on over the line as the Dragons went into the break with a 16-12 lead.
It was also noted that Catalans had a number of six again calls go their way with Trinity struggling in that respect despite a slow ruck.
That being said, Applegarth believes his side had enough to win and lamented his players’ own errors instead of refereeing decisions.
“I thought that period once we got ourselves within two, we didn’t complete four out of the next five sets and we invited pressure onto ourselves,” Applegarth said.
“That’s what cost us today. We started to get the upper hand and we had them on the racks but we came up with some unforced errors. We lacked a bit of composure and we’ve been burned for it. It stings.
“It’s a lesson we’ve got to learn and to build that pressure. Catalans are a good team and will punish you for it.
“You can blame it on a number of things, it’s a lesson we’ve got to learn as a collective and invite undue pressure onto ourselves.
“They are feeling frustrated in there, but the effort is there. You score 24 points and that should be enough to win a game of rugby league and that’s stinging a bit.”
On some of the refereeing decisions, Applegarth said: “You are always going to feel that, whether it’s your own bias, but we don’t want to blame anyone else but ourselves.
“Even though there was a bit of that, we invited a lot of undue pressure which is something we could have controlled. I would rather focus on that than the referee.
“I think it would be nice to have a video referee at every game. From where we stood and the fans making that commotion who knows, but referee has given it but we move on. It would be a luxury but it’s not why we lost the game.”
Applegarth did reveal that Trinity had worked on defending kicks against Tom Johnstone, but the Dragons still scored four of their six four-pointers from kicks.
“He’s a quality player especially from kicks. We’d worked a lot during the week on kicks whether on the floor or aerial but guys like Tommy are renowned for it. We need to defend kicks better.”
The new Wakefield boss left out Jorge Taufua and Lee Kershaw, with Tom Lineham and Lewis Murphy taking the starting wing berths as Morgan Smith started at hooker.
“I think Tom Lineham in pre-season has been our most consistent trainer and performer. He deserved first chance on the right side and Lewis has looked dangerous when he’s played and that’s how we came to those decisions.
“Liam Hood will be back next week or the week after. He’s back running now and hopefully he will be back in the next few weeks or two.”
