Poching temporarily took over earlier this month after a fifth loss in a row ended Chris Chester’s six-year reign.
Wakefield has won three of his four games since then, all of them against teams in the top-six contest.
After yesterday’s 20-13 loss to Leeds Rhinos, Poching said he has not spoken with CEO Michael Carter about accepting the job permanently, insisting: “That will be fixed in due course.”
But Poching has made it clear that he would like the role and it appears from the evidence from recent games that players would enjoy the appointment.
Their performance against Leeds was far from perfect, especially in the first half when a number of good opportunities were wasted, but it was full of spirit, determination and mutual commitment, qualities that were lacking during the sequence of poor results that led to the dismissal of Chester.
“They are showing that they are a real unit and for me, that’s a huge factor,” Poching said after Trinity’s latest win.
“That’s what I look for when they cross that line, that regardless of who’s wearing the Wakey jersey, they are there for each other and they protect each other.
“We’re starting to see some of that pretty consistently.”
Poching’s only loss was to the neighboring Castleford Tigers and he admitted: “In that, for 40 minutes we lacked the excitement that should accompany playing in a derby. This time they showed a lot of spirit and struggle from the beginning, which is what I asked them to do.
“Getting the rewards for that is really nice and so is the spirit and faith that they’re playing with.”
Leeds, temporarily reduced to 12 men, opened the scoring in the 14th minute, totally against the march, when Tom Briscoe sent Kruise Leeming for a try that Rhyse Martin converted.
Trinity tied six minutes before halftime, Jacob Miller designed an opening for Kelepi Tanginoa and Mason Lino added the extras.
That was the least Wakefield deserved in the balance of the game, but Rhinos struck in the final moments of the half to regain the advantage. Rob Lui kicked low between the posts and Brad Dwyer ran to meet up and land.
Martin’s second goal made it 12-6 and, as Poching later conceded, the home side needed to level up.
“We weren’t clinical enough,” he said of his team’s attack in the early period.
“We regrouped at halftime and tackled some of that.
“I thought they were really good at delivering on what they promised at halftime.”
Trinity leveled at 12 minutes into the second half and appeared to be the most likely winner from then on.
Dwyer and Tom Holroyd did very well to prevent Miller from putting the ball over the line, but then Kyle Wood’s kick drifted off a post, misleading the defense and Jordan Cowther landed.
Lino converted and Tom Johnstone made an outstanding tackle to prevent Rhinos from regaining the lead, launching Luke Briscoe on bunt just before.
Moments later, the Leeds defense let Miller’s kick bounce off, Lino received support outside of him, but his pass was intercepted by Callum McLelland. Ash Handley did the same shortly after.
Miller passed a one-point shot to put Wakefield ahead for the first time with 10 minutes to go, but an Eddie Battye error on the restart returned the ball to Rhinos and Lui hit a drop goal to level.
The golden dot appeared at that stage, but Ryan Hampshire kicked Trinity in front on his second one point with six minutes to go and in the final moments Joe Arundel crashed to seal it and Lino converted after the horn.
Leeds coach Rchard Agar accepted that his team had not played well enough, particularly in attack.
“The biggest thing that hurt us was what we did and didn’t do with the ball,” he admitted.
“We didn’t build any pressure, we went to chase points on play two and on play three, we went into touch, got half-breaks and looked to kick the ball instead of creating pressure.
“I think when we look back, we will see a game that was played in our half most of the time.”
Hagar added: “Given that, I actually thought we were defending well.
“Our discipline with the ball was atrocious, but I thought we tried to support it very well on defense.
“I can find some positives in that, but I think we barely had 13 sets in the second half.
“Our good ball finish was the lowest ever while I was here.
“The game was played in our half practically from start to finish.”
Source: www.yorkshirepost.co.uk
This notice was published: 2021-08-30 21:53:41
