WAKEFIELD TRINITY coach Mark Applegarth admits the buck stops with him after seeing his side thrashed 60-0 at Wigan Warriors on Friday.
Trinity were blown away with the Warriors scoring eleven tries in a performance that Applegarth labelled as “unacceptable” and “embarrassing”.
Rookie coach Applegarth knows he is in a results business and is well aware that it’s down to him to get the best out of his squad in order to turn their form around.
“I thought it was a mixture of Wigan being outstanding and us not having that bite about us,” he reflected.
“Our defensive application was a mile off and it’s something I will get to the bottom of. It’s just not acceptable for a team at this level and one I am head coach for, so I will take full responsibility for that, but we have a lot of work to do there are no two ways about it.
“We were just making it up. That is not what we want to be about at Wakefield Trinity this season. We will review and have some pretty honest conversations with each other.”
Applegarth was hurting after the defeat, but he knows it is only round two and he has time to turn it around.
“It’s a long season, but definitely it would be worrying if we served that up regularly,” he said.
“We have gone from round one where I thought there were a lot of positive signs (in defeat to Catalans Dragons) and a couple of areas we could fix up, and then we get to round two where we have been totally outplayed.”
Fullback Max Jowitt missed the match with an ankle knock while Applegarth revealed that they will monitor forward Kelepi Tanginoa, who went off with a leg problem, ahead of this Friday’s visit of Huddersfield Giants.
“It’s not his hamstring that we have just recovered him from, it’s his other leg,” explained the Wakefield coach.
“We’ll have to have a look at that and see how bad that one is going to be. I think that’s the serious one.”
