WAKEY WAKEY

Johnstone demands ‘stupid’ Trinity get a grip

TOM JOHNSTONE has told “stupid” Wakefield to smarten up as they look to get their season back on track in a Huddersfield rematch at Magic Weekend.

The Giants dumped Trinity out of the Challenge Cup on Friday (below), and Wakefield need to make amends to keep their faltering top-four challenge alive.

Seven defeats in eight have derailed a promising start to the campaign, and a further loss in Newcastle could leave Chris Chester’s side looking over their shoulders rather than up for the rest of the campaign.

Winger Johnstone said: “It’s been pretty poor recently by our standards really. We started the season so well but then have been going through bad patches with little bursts of form like beating Saints.

“We’ve gone from that to messing it up again and it’s been really patchy and rough.

“The most frustrating in a team sport is when one week you’re on top of the world and firing, and the next week you’re playing rugby that you don’t even recognise or understand what’s happening. “Huddersfield was a stupid performance on our part. “I felt that we dominated the first half really well, but they went down to 12 men and we just didn’t take advantage at all. We just played silly rugby, didn’t complete well and it showed in the second half when they turned it round.” Chester’s side have the perfect opportunity to make immediate amends with a second Huddersfield showdown in the Sunday fixtures at St James’ Park. Johnstone (above) added: “They’ve been pretty rough too but they did us over last weekend.

“They’ll be tough and come out fighting again, and we’ll have to be on our best game.

“It’s a big stage and all eyes will be on us, so now is the perfect time for us to start performing.

“From the start of the season all we wanted to do was look up, and after a few bad games all people were asking was if we’re worried about so-and-so behind us.

“As a group all we’re doing is looking at the clubs in front of us and trying to claw them back in, rather than get away from the ones behind us.

“Hopefully we can start that on Sunday.

“We’ve put our heads together and are focusing on bouncing back this week.”