Wigan Warriors v Wakefield Trinity: Jai Whitbread confident visitors can cause Super League shock

Trinity have not won away to Wigan since 2017, but Whitbread felt they weren’t far off in the 38-24 round one loss to Catalans Dragons and says improvement in some key areas could see them shock last year’s league runners-up.

“Last week’s result was disappointing, but there were a fair few positives,” the Australian front-rower insisted. “We were under a lot of pressure from the get go and to weather that and score first and get some points was a positive.

“I thought we were in the game for most of it, but we just lost our way a little bit and that ended up costing us.”

Whitbread stressed: “We want to be a team who always put themselves in spots to win games and we want to be consistent.

“We’ve been working on that in training so the big thing is being able to execute that on game day, week-in and week-out.”

Wigan suffered a shock defeat at Hull KR and Whitebread predicted: “They are going to come out firing so we’ve got to match that and put our best foot forward.

“We have the confidence we can win at Wigan or wherever and if we do that’ll give us confidence for the early part of the season.”

Wakefield coach Mark Applegarth has made only one change to his 21-man squad, hooker Liam Hood - who missed last week’s game with a leg injury - replacing centre Reece Lyne.

“Reece has got a bit of a medical issue,” Applegarth said. “I don’t really want to elaborate on it, we are still working on that one.

“Reece did well last week, he was one of our more dangerous players so it will be a bit of a blow for us, but hopefully he is all right.”

Applegarth said Hood is likely to be held back until next Friday’s home game against Huddersfield Giants. Jordan Crowther remains sidelined with concussion, but could also return next week.

Kelepi Tanginoa, Jorge Taufua, Lee Kershaw and Sam Eseh are the other players vying for a call-up.

Wigan’s team will be selected from the 17 beaten by Hull KR, plus Willie Isa, Joe Shorrocks, Patrick Mago and Abbas Miski.

Wigan Warriors: from Field, French, King, Wardle, Marshall, Cust, H Smith, Singleton, Powell, Byrne, Isa, Farrell, Smithies, Cooper, Ellis, Harvard, Pearce-Paul, Shorrocks, Mago, O’Neill, Miski.

Wakefield Trinity: from Jowitt, Taufua, Hall, Lineham, Gaskell, Lino, Battye, Hood, Whitbread, Ashurst, Tanginoa, Pitts, Kay, Antoni, Kershaw, Proctor, M Smith, Langi, Butler, Murphy, Eseh.

Referee: Aaron Moore (Wigan).

Kick-off: Friday, 8pm.