Wakefield 6-11 Castleford: Tigers battle past Trinity to go third in Super League table
Last Updated: 30/03/18 9:12am
Castleford notched a fifth successive win and leapfrogged Wakefield into third in the Super League table with a hard-fought 11-6 victory over Trinity at the Mobile Rocket Stadium.
The match turned into an attritional contest in driving rain in West Yorkshire and the Tigers made the most of the few opportunities that came their way to take the two points.
Mike McMeeken's first-half try put the visitors ahead, with Luke Gale adding the conversion and a drop goal shortly before the break to make it 7-0.
Ben Jones-Bishop's flying effort put Wakefield firmly back in the game on the hour, with Liam Finn converting to narrow the deficit to just one point.
But two penalties from Gale extended Castleford's advantage and they held firm in the closing stages to extend their winning run against their local rivals to nine matches.
Both sides opted for a cautious approach in the opening 10 minutes, taking it in turns to probe the opposition's defence, some good last-ditch defending from Scott Grix keeping Castleford at bay.
Wakefield threatened the Tigers' line on their first real attack in the 13th minute when Anthony England attempted to barge his way over, but he was ruled to have knocked on in the face of a crunching tackle from Oliver Holmes.
The visitors were doing most of their attacking down the left, although it was on the right-hand side when they finally broke through in the 17th minute after a fine passing move saw Ben Roberts feed McMeeken and he powered past Jacob Miller for a try which was converted by Gale.
James Clare almost added a second Cas try in the left-hand corner but his heel had found touch and David Fifita was ruled to have knocked on for the hosts as he went close at the other end.
Gale then found himself in plenty of space four minutes before the break and opted to take the one point to extend the Tigers' lead to 7-0 at half-time.
Wakefield, with Kyle Wood proving influential from the bench, came out on the front foot in the second half but struggled to find a way past the determined Castleford defence as the penalty count rose steadily in the deteriorating conditions.
Trinity suddenly conjured a try out of nothing on the hour-mark, though, when Finn opted to kick long and accurately down the right from the halfway line and Jones-Bishop won the race with Clare to get a try-scoring touch on the ball.
Finn defied the driving rain to land his conversion attempt from wide right and Wakefield were now firmly in the ascendancy.
But Grix dropped a high ball in the 67th minute and the hosts conceded a penalty which Gale comfortably landed to ease the pressure a little on Castleford.
The scrum-half was gifted another two points six minutes later when Trinity were penalised for offside almost under the posts, a decision they were unhappy with.
Greg Minikin's knock-on from the subsequent kick-off handed the initiative back to Wakefield and Tom Johnstone almost forced his way over with four minutes remaining as he was held up just short.
The Tigers stood firm, though, to inflict a third straight defeat on Wakefield and give their coach Daryl Powell a victory in his 150th match in charge.