Wakefield Trinity intend to stick together in relegation fight says head coach Mark Applegarth

Trinity missed a chance to go two points clear of relegation rivals Castleford Tigers and fell behind in the points difference between the two teams when they were heavily beaten 42-4 at Hull.

Next up is the big derby with the Tigers with the losers on Friday week certain to be two points behind with what would then be five games remaining in the Betfred Super League season.

Applegarth did not hide his disappointment at the latest performance from his players, but is confident they will make amends.

He said: "I thought we were going to turn up a better performance than that.

"We’ve got some honest assessments to have on that game because we’ve not played how we wanted to on the back of last week.

"We spoke all week about making sure we learned the lesson of Wigan to Huddersfield game and we’ve obviously done the same again. It’s really important we assess why.

"I’m looking at what Hull did that rattled us. We’ve got to stick together. There’s still six games and it’s still in our hands, it’s as simple as that.

"We’ll be honest with each other this week, but we’ll also make sure we stick together and make sure we come out firing for our next game.

"We’ve got a tight group. We know we’ve not shown up and we’ll review it and get ready for the next game."

Applegarth played down the importance of the upcoming Castleford match.

He explained: "There’s six big games and we’re playing it one week at a time.

"Our focus now moves onto Castleford. I know everyone’s playing it up in their heads into a big occasion. It is, but there’s also a lot of rugby to be played after it.

"It’s a local derby, it’s always a good game. It’s got a bit of added spice to it, but we’ll just play the game and not the occasion to make sure we get the performance we want.

"We can’t afford to be that yo-yo team we’ve shown over that last month where we can put in an absolutely stellar performance one week then we struggle the week after.

"We’ve got to get that certain level about us and sustained level of rugby that’s going to see us through."

In his assessment of what went wrong against Hull, Applegarth added: "I just thought their line speed rattled us all game.

"They were just the better team on the day – I don’t think there’s any excuses on our part.

"We spoke about coming through their middles a bit and not getting too trigger happy in terms of shifting the ball too much and I thought we did, we tried to play around them before we came through them – basics of rugby league.

"It spooked us a bit with how aggressive they were and once you pick one or two wrong passes it gets in your head a bit.

"We lacked that composure and discipline to deal with that.

"There was a period in the second half when we did, but then we came up with two interceptions.

"Everyone knew what this game could do, in terms that it could have given us a little two-point advantage over the bottom of the league, but it’s still in our hands.

"Hopefully it’s a lesson learned for the next game.

"They don’t need me to tell them how frustrating it was. We’ll address that and fix it up, we’ll work on just staying together and keeping that tight unit we are developing.”