Wakefield Trinity boss reflects on "crazy week" ahead of Super League showdown with Hull FC

Two Trinity players tested positive for coronavirus on Tuesday last week, leading to their game at Leeds Rhinos two days later being postponed.

Recent tests have produced negative results and Trinity returned to training on Monday ahead of Thursday's Betfred Super League meeting with Hull.

“It has been a crazy week,” Chester reflected. “Not ideal preparation going into a Thursday night game, but we’ve just got to get back out there.”

Alex Walker and Jay Pitts are available for the fixture at St Helens’ TW Stadium after being stood down following track and trace analysis of Trinity’s Coral Challenge Cup tie against Catalans Dragons, who later reported several positive tests for Covid-19.

Bill Tupou is also in contention after suffering concussion the following week against Warrington Wolves and Ben Jones-Bishop - sidelined since December because of a blood clot - could feature. Winger Tom Johnstone remains on Trinity’s casualty list with an elbow injury and Chester said he is “probably two weeks off”.

Chester has named an initial 21-man squad, but said not all of those are fit. He added: “It is challenging at the minute, we had two lads who could not train [on Monday] because they’ve picked up a niggle while they’ve been training on their own.

“Every day there there has been some kind of challenge and last week was pretty stressful, to say the least.”

But Chester feels Trinity have plenty to gain from the clash with Hull. He insisted: “This week is a fantastic opportunity for some players who haven’t had a great deal of game time and I am hopeful we can give another young kid a debut.

“There’s a few forced and a few unforced [changes] in the 21-man squad and it’s important we put in a really tough performance and make sure we are a hard team to beat.”

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