Wigan 'lose control' at Castleford

The Wigan coach Stuart Raper was highly critical of his side after their Super League season began with a 19-10 defeat at Castleford yesterday.

The game went wrong very late for the visitors as they conceded two tries in the last five minutes by Darren Rogers and Waine Pryce and had Paul Johnson was sent off in the 78th minute for a high tackle on Jamie Thackray.

"I was very disappointed," said Raper. "We lost control of all the things we have worked on in the off season."

Hull's much-fancied side were made to work hard for their first points of the new season by Wakefield at Belle Vue. The Airlie Birds led 10-8 at half-time and only Craig Greenhill's 65th-minute try calmed the nerves of the huge Hull following as they ran out 28-14 winners with Steve Prescott running in a hat-trick.

"We controlled the start of each half and we looked the more dominant side," said the Hull coach, Shaun McRae. "But it only takes one event to get the other side interested and that's what happened."

Halifax upset the odds to begin their campaign with an unlikely, but well-deserved 26-22 win over the London Broncos at Griffin Park. They took full advantage of the notoriously slow-starting Broncos to claim what could prove a valuable two points from an error-strewn, but closely-contested game.

Lee Finnerty, Dane Dorahy, Andrew Brocklehurst and Chris Birchall all touched down before they held off a late rally.

"The result wasn't real good and nor was the performance," said the London coach Tony Rea. "Our minds weren't ready for the start of Super League and we got a wake-up call."

Halifax have been heavily tipped to struggle this season and their coach Tony Anderson said: "No one has given us a chance which I thought was unfortunate because no one has seen us play."