DARYL POWELL believes Wakefield Trinity should fear nobody in the Challenge Cup after progressing to the quarter-finals with the help of Tom Johnstone.
In his first appearance of the season following injury, England winger Johnstone helped set up two of Wakefield’s four tries in the 24-14 win over Leeds Rhinos.
“I thought he was unbelievable,” said coach Powell.
“The break he made just before we scored (Matty Storton’s try) was phenomenal, there were probably eight tackle busts in one run.
“He hasn’t done a massive amount of training. I haven’t seem him play that well for a long time. He looked every inch an international player.”
Of the overall performance, Powell added: “I thought we were great all the way through the game, but the last two second-half performances from us have been exceptional.
“Our resilience in the second half was really good, and we were better in how we finished our sets. We gave too much away in the first half and spoke about that at half-time.
“I just think we’re growing. Tonight was a tough game in awkward conditions against a team that was flying.
“There’s so much like to like about us as a team and we’re piecing it together. All the signs are positive.
“I did feel that tonight could give our season a real kickstart. Everyone has been doubting what we’re about.
“We’re a slow burner this year because players missed big chunks of pre-season. They’re starting to come now and you can see that.
“I don’t think we should fear anybody. We can go anywhere and play anybody and we should feel confident.”
Powell could laugh off the 23-minute delay to the game when the floodlights went out.
“It ended up being a bit of theatre, so whilst you don’t want it to happen it was quite funny in the end,” he said.