Chester plays down significance of his Hull KR return as Wakefield start with a win

Wakefield coach Chris Chester returned to the club who sacked him almost two years ago to the day and spoiled their Super League party – before promising his side can get even better.

Winger Tom Johnstone scored a hat-trick as Wakefield began the new season with victory, beating Hull Kingston Rovers 28-6 on the Robins’ first night back in Super League.

“We spoke all week about how vocal these fans are, and we wanted to silence them tonight: we did that in the first 40 minutes,” he said. “They got a bit vocal after their try but there were some big lessons for there tonight, and we’ll be better for the run. We’ll all improve after the game.”

Chester, who coached the Robins to a Challenge Cup final in 2015 before losing his job at the start of the following season, however, was quick to play down any talk of him enjoying the result any more than usual.

Chester also insisted it was not about him as his Trinity side began 2018 with an impressive win. He said: “It’s not about me. There’s a lot of good people here, and we’ve all moved on. This was about the performance, I’m with Wakefield Trinity and it’s always nice to win, irrespective of whether I was here before or not. ”

Chester also praised Johnstone for his try-scoring exploits – but admitted he had almost decided to leave him out in the days leading up to the game.

He revealed: “Up until Wednesday he wasn’t in my starting 17 – I decided I’d go with Mason as I thought he’d trained well in Lanzarote and the weather report told us it would be wet and raining, so it was a tough call but we decided to go with Tom. The decision paid off in the end. He’s a special talent.