Struggling Wakefield have a bad hair day

Wakefield 6 Huddersfield 54

It could be some time before there is a run on razor blades and shaving foam in the Wakefield area. The coaching and playing staff at Belle Vue have made a pact to grow beards until they take their Super League points total to 20 from its present 14. On this showing, they could look more like a ZZ Top tribute band than a rugby league team before that happens.

Their fifth defeat in a row saw them over-run by a Huddersfield team coming out of their own form slump and for whom the likes of Luke Robinson and David Hodgson with his hat-trick looked like world-beaters. The alternative reading is that they were not up against very much, especially in the second half.

"Our defensive effort was woeful and inept," said their coach, John Kear. "We absolutely collapsed."

Wakefield were without two of their more creative players in Danny Brough and Danny Sculthorpe, both suspended by the club this week for drinking on the team bus.

They also fell behind early in the game, when Huddersfield scored their first try with ominous ease. Robinson kicked for the corner, Hodgson won the ball in the air and Danny Kirmond touched down.

Wakefield briefly came into the game as an attacking force, with Richard Moore held up over the line and Ryan Atkins denied for a forward pass.

Huddersfield were still the more incisive side, however, and it took a lung-bursting chase from Jamie Rooney, in his first start of an illness-ravaged season, to stop Martin Aspinwall scoring a length-of-the-field interception try.

Wakefield edged in front when Sam Obst's well-timed inside ball put Matt Blaymire over for a converted try, but the latter stages of the first half belonged overwhelmingly to the visitors.

Scott Moore's 40/20 kick put them on the attack and Robinson's superbly delayed pass enabled Leroy Cudjoe to send Hodgson through. Whatuira and Hodgson then tied a naive Trinity defence in knots for Cudjoe to score.

They were even more dominant after the break with four tries, all of them converted, in a 15 minute spell. Robinson sent Brown over, Moore seized on a loosed ball from Rooney and Robinson's breaks set up Whatuira and Hodgson. After a brief lull, Jamahl Lolesi, Hodgson, with his hat-trick from an intercept, and Moore completed what had become a rout.

"David Hodgson was great, but a lot of different players contributed in different ways," said his coach, Nathan Brown.

Wakefield: Blaymire; Gleeson, Demetriou, Atkins, George; Martin, Rooney; Bibey, Obst, R.Moore, Pitts, Snitch, Henderson. Substitutes used: Bibb, Stosic, Grix, Leo-Latu.

Huddersfield: Cudjoe; Aspinwall, Lolesi, Whatuira, Hodgson; Brown, Robinson; Mason, S Moore, Griffin, Wild, Kirmond, Finnigan. Substitutes used: Crabtree, Faiumu, Raleigh, Mossop.

Referee: P Bentham (Warrington)