Visits to The Mobile Rocket Stadium seldom prove to be a happy hunting ground for most teams, but trips into Yorkshire, this season, have proven to be quite profitable for the Red Devils, with only the recent Castleford game, which came immediately upon the taxing trip down to Perpignan, being problematic in this respect.. Whether such good away form can be rediscovered in Sunday’s encounter remains to be seen, but Head Coach, ian Watson, has set his team on the road to doing so, during the past week.
ON THE OPPOSITION
“They may well have been a little bit up and do this year, but they nevertheless are a good team with a big set of forwards who work really hard. They also like to play with the ball, so they are team which has to be taken seriously, and so we have to be up to the mark with our defence.
“Like ourselves, they have a team ethic which they base all their performances around.”
ON DANNY BROUGH
“The acquisition of Danny Brough during the close season, is a different type of player from Liam Finn, who he has replaced. He has more pace and can control games with his kicking, so we shall have to put some pressure on him in order to contain him.
“With Jackson Hastings facing him, there could also be quite a tussle between, as there also could right across the field, not least between Rob Lui and Jacob Miller. There potentially is another between Niall Evalds and Ryan Hampshire, who has been holding down their fullback slot recently, while the big forwards on both sides, such as Gil Dudson and David Fifita, will undoubtedly be having a battle between themselves.”
ON CRAIG KOPCZAK
“I’ve known Koppy for a long time and he is a really good bloke and equally good player. All our forwards have mentioned him during the week and they know what they have to do to be on their guard against him. He, himself, will be fully aware of this.
“Alongside him are not only the already mentioned David Fifita, but also Pauli Pauli, and stopping such big men can sometimes suck in more players than usual, which with a quick play-the-ball can put you on the back foot. We have looked at how we can deal with them, so now it is down to the troops to do so.”
ON RECENT MATCHES
“This is the level that we want to be playing at, and we have had the chance to test ourselves at that top level in recent weeks. So, against a Wigan team, with more internationals on the field than they had had for much of the season, we performed well apart from a couple of short spells in which we missed a couple of crucial tackles. This was much the same the week before against Castleford, but we have a young team, and they are learning from all this.
The really good thing though is that we have been competitive in all those games, just as Wakefield have been in theirs. We just need to keep at it and turn these performances into victories.
ON OUR GOALKICKING
“We have had a lot of disruption around our goalkicking this season and we haven’t had a settled kicker at all. It was originally intended to have been Jackson, but he picked up a leg injury, which would have been exacerbated by kicking. Ed Chamberlain also had a lengthy lay off owing to an injury, so Joey Lussick took over for a spell.
“More recently, Ken Sio has been kicking really well until he, too, picked up an injury. All of them practise their kicking, but we really do need to get a settled goalkicker. It’s still relatively early in the season though, and things are still being ironed out.”
ON KRIS INU
“Kris’s arrival means we now have a whole lot more competition for places and selection will be solely on performance, not name nor reputation. Jake Bibby, for example, has taken his chance really well, so much so that Junior Sa’u has had to play a waiting game until the chance comes round to him again – and Junior knows this and has taken it as the true professional he is.
“Now, Krisnan’s coming in puts pressure on Kris Welham and Ed Chamberlain to keep performing and doing their jobs. Krisnan is a very good goalkicker, so once he starts to find his feet, he could come into the reckoning, but we would never carry somebody for their goalkicking alone. He has got to be doing his job, but he is looking good already.”
