KRISTIAN Woolf wants his Saints players to be wary of the last clash with Wakefield as the two sides prepare to meet with fresh injuries on Friday night.
Woolf feels that ‘Wakey’ become a more dangerous opposition with every game that passes as they seek their first win of the season, having so far lost to Leeds, Wigan and Catalans.
And he is eager for his side, albeit with some pack injuries, to make improvements on their weekend’s showing when injury-ravaged 12-man Leeds were finally defeated 26-18 in the Challenge Cup.
“If you look at the round 15 game we played Wakefield last year, they’d gone a few rounds without a win and they came out with a real energy and effort,” said Woolf.
“They made life hard for us in that game, caught us on the jump a little bit and we had to work hard to get the result at the end.
“That’s a game that we need to be conscious of. We need to get ourselves ready to play to our standards and play at our best.
“We didn’t quite do that on the weekend just gone and the players are keen to make amends for that."
There are some key things that Woolf wants to see his side improve upon from the Leeds showing.
“The biggest area I was most unhappy with was the three tries we allowed," he said.
"It was the way that those tries were scored. I thought that we were a bit poor in that area.
“I thought Leeds had a game plan to try and slow the game down a little bit and make it a bit stop-start, spoil it a little bit at different times as well.
“We’ve got to learn how to cope with that and we’ve got to make sure our attack’s a little bit more patient and we put things together a little bit better when teams are trying to do that because that’s certainly been the game plan the last couple of weeks and I’m sure there’s going to be teams coming at us going forward as well.
“We’ve got to make sure that we do things right and that way we’ll certainly find more points as well.”
While Mark Percival may be back after his hamstring trouble, neither Matty Lees (ankle) or Sioni Mata’utia (head) are to figure following the injuries they sustained against Leeds.
Lees is to be sidelined for 'a few weeks' with an ankle injury.
Mata’utia passed his concussion tests at the weekend but he is to sit this one out as a precaution.
Two from Jake Wingfield, Joe Batchelor and Dan Norman are likely to step up.
Wakefield will be without Tom Johnstone and Max Jowitt due to concussion, along with the suspended Kelepi Tanginoa, the injured Bill Tupou and Matty Ashton, while Josh Wood is a doubt with an elbow problem.
Saints 21: 1, Lachlan Coote, 2, Tommy Makinson, 3. Kevin Naiqama, 4, Mark Percival, 5. Regan Grace, 6. Jonny Lomax, 7. Theo Fages, 8. Alex Walmsley, 9. James Roby, 11. Joel Thompson, 12, James Bentley, 15. LMS, 16. Kyle Amor, 17, Agnatius Paasi, 18. Jack Welsby, 19, Aaron Smith, 20, Joe Batchelor, 21. Lewis Dodd, 23. Jake Wingfield, 25. Dan Norman, 26. Tom Nisbet.
📝 TEAM NEWS
— Wakefield Trinity (@WTrinityRL) April 14, 2021
Kyle Wood and Eddie Battye return to the squad for Friday night!
Jowitt and Johnstone are ruled out following concussion at the weekend, whilst Tupou and Ashurst are missing through injury. Tanginoa will serve his one-match suspension.#SLStHWak pic.twitter.com/Wbk6a18DyX
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