Wakefield 72-10 Hull FC: Trinity score record total in victory
Win consigns Super League champions Leeds to Qualifiers
By PA Sport
Last Updated: 27/07/18 10:02am
Wakefield secured their Super League status and consigned champions Leeds to the Qualifiers with a thumping 72-10 victory over Hull FC.
The result means a bottom-four placing for reigning champions Leeds, who will have to fight for their survival in the Super 8s Qualifiers for the second time in three years.
Chris Chester's men ran in 12 tries and Ryan Hampshire kicked 12 goals from 13 attempts as Trinity registered their highest score in Super League history.
It was also Hull's biggest-ever Super League defeat, eclipsing their 64-10 hammering by St Helens in 2002, and effectively ended their top-four hopes after a third successive defeat.
Hull, who had won their eight previous meetings with Wakefield, had regulars Marc Sneyd, Jamie Shaul, Joe Westerman and Fetuli Talanoa all back in their starting line-up despite not being named in coach Lee Radford's initial 19-man squad.
Sneyd was back from a nine-match absence with a knee injury but quite how fit the returning players were remains a question to be answered.
The Black and Whites trailed 72-0 before avoiding total humiliation by scoring the last two tries of the match.
Hampshire opened the scoring with a penalty, awarded for an infringement while Hull were in possession, and it was a procession from the moment winger Tom Johnstone took Max Jowitt's cut-out pass for the first try.
In sporadic attacks, the visitors twice managed to get over the Wakefield line but Jordan Abdull and Scott Taylor were both held up, otherwise it was very much one-way traffic in the first half.
Trinity were clearly dominant and they were aided by handling errors deep inside their own half by Jack Logan, Jansin Turgut and Mickey Paea.
Heavyweight forwards David Fifita and Pauli Pauli both proved unstoppable as they romped over for tries while lively stand-off Jacob Miller jinked his way over for one and centre Reece Lyne eased his way out of attempted tackles to score one try and create another for James Batchelor.
Trailing 38-0 at half-time, it got even worse for Hull when Wakefield winger Ben Jones-Bishop pounced on a handling error from Talanoa to sprint 70 metres for his side's seventh try within three minutes of the restart.
Full-back Jowitt became Wakefield's eighth different tryscorer when he supported a break by Hampshire through the heart of the Hull defence and Hampshire made it nine goals from as many attempts to bring up the half-century.
Hull could do little right and Miller pounced on another knock-on by Logan to hack the ball ahead and race 60 metres for his second try.
Hampshire lost his 100 per cent record with the boot but was back on target from the touchline after Lyne made light of Hull's threadbare defence to score his second try in the 56th minute.
Despite having plenty of practice at the restart, Hull twice managed to kick out on the full to allow their opponents to remain on the front foot
Jones-Bishop and Pauli both added their second tries and Hampshire took his goal tally to 12 before substitute Liam Harris and winger Bureta Faraimo grabbed consolation tries for Hull, with the latter adding a conversion.
