Coach Chester hails Wakefield ‘character’
Chris Chester paid tribute to the character of his Wakefield side as they came from behind to stun Salford Red Devils 34-24.
Trailing heading into the last five minutes, Wakefield crossed twice through Mason Caton-Brown, completing a hat-trick against his former team, and James Batchelor to claim a sixth straight win, much to the delight of head coach Chester.
He said: “I say every week, there’s plenty of character in this side. We play for the full 80 minutes. Even with five minutes to go there was belief that we could get over the top of them.
“It was a really good team performance, in tough circumstances. On the whole we probably edged it, we competed really hard in the first half.
“There were some really good individual performances and collectively I thought we were pretty good.
“We had about six fresh bodies and I thought the freshness might help us and I think it did in that last five or ten minutes.”
Elsewhere Hull FC coach Lee Radford was fuming at the schedule that saw his side play a third game in nine days, even though they beat Wigan 39-26 on Saturday.
Radford’s men ran in six tries, but the 38year-old was more concerned about the way his players were not being looked after by the schedule makers in Super League.
He said: “This is the most pleasing win of the season because of the circumstances for both teams. It’s been an unbelievably difficult period that didn’t need to happen.
“The schedule was made for an England camp that never came about (in pre-season). I understand the RFL defending the situation, but if you’re not prepared to admit to making mistakes you’re never going to right the wrongs.
“There was no thought for player welfare there in that game. That was two reserve teams running on empty but we’ll be better for it. But some acknowledgement has to be made that mistakes have been made. This game would have been cancelled had it not been for players being jabbed up.”
Leeds faced an even more demanding fixture list, with three games in just eight days, and Brian McDermott echoed Radford’s words following victory over Leigh on Friday.
He added: “What do you expect? It’s crazy. It’s wrong. It doesn’t work. We’ve got a longer week building up to the Wakefield game but it’ll be in their bones still next week. “My boys are shot in there. You can’t overestimate the physical demands put on them. You ask anyone who does a marathon, or something which is a big ask physically, it’s not just a couple of days’ rest.
“Rugby league is one of the hardest sports in the world. I’ve got a bit of history in boxing and that’s probably the hardest sport ever - both mentally and physically but they only box every three months.
“We wouldn’t be too far behind the physical demands of a boxer and the players do it every seven days. It wrecks their bodies.” — AFP