Warrington Wolves 36 Wakefield Trinity 0 - Trinity ‘doing it tough’ in Super League but no sign of white flag against the Wire

It was Wakefield’s second successive whitewash in Betfred Super League, but a depleted side fought a gutsy rearguard action in difficult circumstances.

As well as their injured players, Wakefield were without Alex Walker, Jay Pitts and Liam Kay, who are isolating and Dave Fifita, dropped after refusing to wear a global positioning system tracker.

To add to their woes, Trinity lost experienced centre Bill Tupou to a head injury, which will rule him out of Thursday’s derby at Leeds Rhinos and on-loan winger Innes Senior hobbled off after rollIng an ankle.

It was a tall order to get anything from the game and Wakefield never looked capable of doing that, but they weren’t completely blown away either.

On attack they had only one clear chance when Kelepi Tanginoa made a break, but the supporting Jacob Miller knocked on in Jake Mamo’s tackle.

At the other end, Trinity conceded six tries, all converted, but coach Chris Chester’s men never waved the white flag and showed much more spirit than in their previous league game when they were thumped 58-0 by Catalans Dragons.

Chester said: “We are doing it tough at the minute and they were too good for us, too quick and too physical.

“There’s some positives to come out of it, I thought we started the game pretty well and - take away the last couple of tries - really fronted up.”

There was nothing between the teams until Toby King accepted an off-load from Stephan Ratchford, threw a dummy and forced his way past Max Jowitt for the opening try after 17 minutes.

Another step and a dummy undid Wakefield eight minutes later, Blake Austin doing the injury this time.

The Australian stand-off then turned provider with a long, looping pass to put winger Josh Charnley over and when Ratchford landed his third conversion, from the touchline, the game was already drifting away from Trinity, but restricting Warrington to an 18-point half-time lead was a commendable effort considering all the defence Wakefield had done.

Austin sliced through from midway inside Wakefield’s half, skipping past two defenders and taking another pair over the line with him, to get the scoreboard ticking again five minutes after the break.

It was a damage-limitation exercise after that and Warrington didn’t score again until the 70th minute when Ben Currie raced the length of the field after collecting Jacob Miller’s kick.

Five minutes later Austin capped a fine display with his hat-trick try, from Matt Davis’ pass and Ratchford’s sixth conversion completed the scoring.

With Wakefield up against it, Fifita’s stance has let his side down.

Asked if the prop has explained his refusal to wear the tracking device during games, Chester admitted: “Not really.”

He said: “The safety of his fellow players and the opposition is paramount.

“We had no data on Dave Fifita for that second half [of last week’s Cup defeat to Catalans].

“I think it is a real strong message from the club.

“He has been stood down for a couple of weeks [and] it is going to hurt us.

“He is one of our better players and highest earners, but the club felt they had to send a message out not just to Wakefield Trinity, but to the rest of Super League as well.”

Warrington Wolves: Ratchford, Lineham, Mamo, King, Charnley, Austin, Widdop, Hill, D Clark, Cooper, Currie, Hughes, J Clark. Subs Philbin, Ashton, Davis, Kibula.

Wakefield Trinity: Jowitt, Croft, Gigot, Tupou, Senior, Miller, Hampshire, Naverrete, K Wood, Arona, Batchelor, Ashurst, Westerman. Subs Kirmond, Crowther, Green, Tanginoa.

Referee: Marcus Griffiths (Widnes).