Wakefield coach John Kear said he was "absolutely delighted" after his side beat high-flying Huddersfield on Sunday.
Wakefield coach "absolutely delighted" as his side humble high-flying Huddersfield
Wakefield coach John Kear said he was "absolutely delighted" after his side beat high-flying Huddersfield on Sunday.
The Wildcats, who sit second bottom of Super League, gave a determined performance against the Giants, who produced a string of handling and tackling errors.
Former Huddersfield winger Luke George opened the scoring, with Gareth Moore kicking the conversion and adding two penalties to put Wakefield 10-0 up at half-time.
Another penalty from Moore extended their lead and although Shaun Lunt crossed the line, Moore's drop goal sealed the points - despite Jamie Cording's try meaning a nervy climax.
Kear said: "I'm absolutely delighted. How we played out there, how we work, that's us as a group and we've done it tough the last couple of weeks because it was tough to handle the Castleford defeat (in the Challenge Cup). They've really bounced back today.
"Perhaps Huddersfield will feel they weren't at their best but we certainly challenged them in every area; physically, defensively, ball in hand and with the kicking game and we played the conditions pretty well.
"Perhaps it isn't pretty and perhaps the conditions dictate it but they carried out the tactics to perfection and I've got to credit both half-backs and both hookers as well for doing that."
Potential
Moore produced a fine performance, although Kear refused to get carried away with the young stand-off, who moved to Belle Vue following a season with Championship club Batley.
He continued: "I think he's shown Super League potential, we won't call him a Super League player until he's strung 20 or so games together and he's put a season in."
Although Kear thought that Huddersfield suffered in the absence of Danny Brough - the former Wildcat being ruled out with an ankle injury - he stressed that his side were without key players too.
He added: "Obviously Danny Brough's a big miss. We can't kid ourselves he isn't but we can only play our fit players and Tommy Lee pulled out at the last minute with a hamstring injury so Matty Wildie found himself called up and did really well.
"Huddersfield can only play their fit players and that's what we've done and our fit 17 beat their fit 17 today fair and square."
Huddersfield coach Nathan Brown also refused to blame the absence of several players for their first defeat in four matches.
He said: "We had lots of players who didn't play who were genuinely injured, that's the way it is.
"We put a side out there today, that on talent, was better than the opposition but the opposition wanted to win more than we did and they just played much, much smarter than we did."
The Giants could have moved to the top of the table following Warrington's shock loss to Salford.
Undeserving
Brown added: "We didn't deserve to win. If we'd scored late, it would have been an injustice to 'Keary' and Wakefield.
"The opposition seemed to play the conditions much better than us for the first period of the game. Wakey make limited errors as it is and they take limited risks and they generally kick the ball well.
"We kept dropping the ball and they kept getting their kicks.
"The bonus of today is it's not going to be too hard to pick next week's team. Normally you have sleepless nights over who you're going to pick when everyone's fit but I won't have that problem this week."
