IT’S been a damaging week for Wakefield Trinity, with Friday’s thrashing at the hands of Wigan Warriors following a series of injury blows.
They went into the match without Josh Rourke, Oliver Pratt, Corey Hall and Mason Lino through injury, as well as suspended Jazz Tevaga, following the previous week’s epic win over Hull KR.
Their outside backs took a further blow with Jayden Myers withdrawn at half-time with a shoulder injury.
And after the game, coach Daryl Powell gave further detail on some of his injured players, following Hall being ruled out for six weeks with ankle ligament damage.
On Lino’s calf injury, Powell said: “I’m not 100 percent sure but I think he’s potentially five or six weeks.
“Pratty looks like eight weeks. Rourkey I’m not sure exactly yet but he’s not going to be as long as that.”
Powell has much to ponder ahead of Friday’s trip to Hull FC not just in terms of player availability but how to respond to a 48-10 defeat in which his side were comprehensively outplayed.
“Wigan were awesome from start to finish,” he said.
“We were too slow, it was a really poor performance. We’ll learn from lessons from it and move on.
“They completely dominated the game. They’ve been playing that way for a few weeks and they continued in that vein of form. I don’t think we did that much to stop it.
“It is what it is. We turned up and got beaten in every facet of the game. We’ve got to learn some pretty harsh lessons from what Wigan did today – they were phenomenal.
“We’ll discuss during the week and find out reasons why, collectively and individually, we weren’t where we wanted to be. I haven’t got any really strong opinions on it now.
“We can’t brush it under the carpet. We just need to find out why.
“No knee jerk reaction is needed. We’ve generally been pretty good, we just got served up tonight everywhere really.
“They’re pretty sharp if you sit off them and let them play. The number of times they went from one side of the field to the other was alarming.
“Teams are struggling with them at the moment, aren’t they? They’re pretty sharp everywhere.
“The young kids are playing great for them. I thought the pack was awesome tonight. They carried the ball with some real venom. Junior Nsemba is playing at a top level at the moment. They all played well.
“And just when things are going well, they bring Bevan French off the bench!
“It’s a disappointing night for us but it’s a long season, it ebbs and flows and sometimes you’ve got to cop them and move on.”