DARYL Powell hailed Wakefield Trinity’s staunch try-line defence to restrict York Knights to adding just four points to the scoreboard on Sunday.

The sides' AB Sundecks 1895 Cup clash was Trinity’s first competitive hit-out under Powell, and things could hardly have gone much better for their new boss in the 40-4 triumph.

Wakefield were unplayable in the first 25 minutes, with Luke Gale, Jermaine McGillvary, Josh Griffin and Lachlan Walmsley all crossing the whitewash in a start that Powell feels was almost perfect.

“I thought that we started great,” the Trinity boss told a post-match press conference.

“I thought that we were not far off perfect in the first 20 or 25 minutes. “And then we made a couple of errors, which put York into a good attacking field position.

“But what I suppose we could show there was that we could defend our try-line.”

For as outstanding as Trinity’s opening quarter had been, repeated errors close to their try-line threatened to leave York with a way back into the game.

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Liam Harris’ grubber rolled dead, whilst pressure on Oli Field saw the young back-rower drop the ball as he bore down on the line, but the Knights did eventually break through from a play the ball error, Will Jubb crashing over from close range for their only points of the afternoon 10 minutes from time.

“We watched York leading into this, and the game that they played against Newcastle, the amount of players that they’ve got, they’ve got some smart players near the line,” Powell explained.

“We defended everything that was thrown at us really, for pretty much all the game.

“That period just before half time I thought was a really big effort from the whole team, and then in the second half I thought that we were a little bit loose.

“I thought that York stepped up a couple of levels and we gave them a few opportunities - a couple of errors, a couple of penalties - which then meant that they spent a bit of time on our try-line again.

“But that was probably one of the most pleasing parts of our performance, holding them out until they get that offload and they get points on us.

“But we finished the game well with that try, which was a great bit of skill from Max Jowitt.”

Powell described the result as a “good win” for Wakefield, feeling as though York were greatly improved after the interval.

“I always thought that it was going to be a tough game coming here. York have got a smart coach and they throw a lot at you.

“They’ve got a couple of players missing and I thought that they stepped up in the second half.

“They’ll probably be more pleased with the second half, and us more pleased with the first.

“But it was an important game and we needed to win it - we’d have had to score over 104 points against Newcastle, - so we needed to get that right and I thought we did that pretty well.”