DARYL POWELL couldn’t have been prouder of his Wakefield Trinity side after pulling one of the great play-off performances to reach their first Grand Final.
Wakefield stunned Wigan Warriors, who had won their last 16 matches and were chasing the treble, 33-6 on their own turf.
“The performance from the boys tonight was exceptional,” said Powell, who has taken the club from the Championship to Old Trafford in three seasons as coach.
“We knew we had to play that well to beat Wigan, because they’re unbelievable here. To come here and do what we did is an awesome feeling.
“But it’s important we don’t get too carried away with it. It’s right we celebrate it, but then we’ll focus on next week.
“I thought it would be a tight game. The first half looked that way, and we were just in front at half-time. The second-half performance was exceptional.
“They went down to twelve (when Adam Keighran was shown the yellow card) and Truey (Jake Trueman) was phenomenal in the second half, he came up with some real quality plays.
“That period we executed really well. We were disciplined, we put the ball where we wanted with our kicking game and defensively we fronted up everywhere. Every player had an outstanding defensive performance.”
While Keighran’s sin bin for a tip tackle proved decisive, with three Wakefield tries following, Wakefield dealt far better with Jazz Tevaga being shown yellow for a trip in the first half.
“It’s harsh,” Powell said of the latter decision. “It’s not a genuine trip really, he steps forward to make a tackle, but it is what it is.
“We handled it alright I thought. We’ve had a bit of practice with twelve men recently which helped us.
“We conceded one try but we worked really hard in the remainder of that ten minutes because that could have been dangerous, as we showed in the second half.”