Unstoppable Faatili at the double as Wakefield Trinity do double over champions

It was not their most fluent performance of the season, but was full of grit as they ran out deserving 20-6 victors. If the Magic Weekend win had shown how well Daryl Powell’s men could attack this showed the defensive side of their game as they prevented their opponents from scoring a single try in what was their first home loss for a year. It was Wakefield’s third successive victory over KR and should give them a huge confidence boost for the big tests ahead against their likely play-off rivals. Their hosts were strangely argumentative from the start and seemed to have a chip on their shoulder as their frustrations with referee Chris Kendall were quick to show. But Trinity simply got on with the job and their professional approach paid off as they ultimately ran out comfortable winners with a strong second half display led by man of the match Caius Faatili who proved unstoppable from close range twice with two second half tries. The visitors started off the stronger and were rewarded when the impressive Harvey Smith – who started at hooker with Tyson Smoothy at half-back in the absence of injured duo Jack Sinfield and Mason Lino – shot through a gap for the opening try. Smoothy was on kicking duties and surprisingly hit the post with the easy looking conversion. Rovers' hopes were hit again when they lost Peta Hiku to the sin-bin for a late, high tackle. But they got their first points on the board with Rhyse Martin kicking a penalty and he added a second soon after with the visitors also reduced to 12 men with Ky Rodwell also yellow carded. Mistakes crept into both sides’ play and infringements did not allow the game to flow for the rest of the first half. No more tries followed before the break, although Wakefield nudged ahead with a Smoothy kick before Martin kicked his third penalty just before the hooter to tie the scores again. The second half saw Trinity dominant for long periods, although they initially wasted some good field positions with Tom Johnstone forced into touch then unable to gather a Jake Trueman high kick near the tryline. The hosts responded to force a goal-line drop-out as Smoothy sent the ball dead after a threatening Tyrone May kick was not dealt with. A big turning point followed from the next Hull attack when the ball went loose 10 yards from the Wakefield line and full-back Josh Rouke brilliantly turned defence into attack by swiftly gathering the ball up then racing 25 metres downfield before handing onto Lachlan Walmsley. Although the winger was taken down the visitors were back on attack. A penalty for a high shot followed and the decision to run it paid off as Faatili barged over from close range after taking Smoothy’s pass. Smoothy added the conversion and was on target again six minutes later following another Faatili score as he powerfully forced his way over with three KR players unable to stop him. The next attack saw the ball turned over deep in the home half and an obstruction offence – badly captain’s challenged – gave Trin another penalty. This time they opted for a kick with Smoothy’s goal taking the score out to 20-6. KR briefly thought they had pulled some points back as Mikey Lewis went over, but the try was rightly denied for a knock-on by Joe Burgess as he tried to collect a high kick. Wakefield bombed a try late on when Myles Lawford, on his Super League debut, chose to pass to Walmsley when he could have maybe got over the line himself, and the ball went to ground. But they saw out the final 15 minutes comfortably enough with some strong work by the forwards to clinch one of their best victories since they came back into Super League.