By JOHN DAVIDSON
CAIUS Faatili grabbed a hat-trick as Wakefield Trinity bashed Catalans Dragons thanks to a second half blitz.
Tied10-10 at half-time, Wakefield turned on the afterburners in the second half and scored nine tries to romp to a dominant 58-10 victory.
Catalans suffered a blow just three minutes in when Lewis Dodd went off for a head injury assessment.
But it didn’t seem to impact them as it was the Dragons who drew first blood, eight minutes into the match.
Tommy Makinson made a break down the left edge and found Charlie Staines in support for the score.
Toby Sexton made no mistake to give the visitors an early 6-0 lead.
Soon, they were in again, this time thanks to the brilliance of Solomona Faataape.
The big centre bulldozed his way through a tackle, drew Josh Rourke and then popped a pass for Sexton to touch down easily.
Sexton’s conversion attempt hit the post but at 10-0 after just 11 minutes, Catalans seemed to be cruising.
Wakefield started to move the ball at speed to find an opening, but the visitors’ defence was up to scratch.
Trinity made some metres downfield, but their hands let them down.
Wakefield earned a penalty and their hard graft paid off with Caleb Hamlin-Uele powering off over a crash ball.
Mason Lino added the extras to make it 10-6.
Trinity were building pressure on Catalans, who hooked their short drop-out straight into touch.
Then, the Dragons worked their way up the other end of the field and earned a penalty, which Sexton missed badly.
Right before half-time Wakefield threw shape to their left edge and Will Tate crashed over in the corner.
Lino couldn’t add the extras, leaving it delicately poised at 10-10 at the break.
The second half started with a successful Captain’s Challenge for the home side, with Catalans penalized for a ball steal.
Then came a bit of brilliance from Jake Trueman.
The halfback looked to have nowhere to go, but dinked a ball over the top with Faatili winning the race to score.
Lino extended Trinity’s lead to 16-10, the first time in the game that Trinity had been ahead.
Three minutes later the home side were in again and would not look back.
After a series of offloads and line breaks, the ball came to Jay Pitts and the forward cut inside to touch down.
Trinity were on fire and Myers was the next to score, courtesy of a beautifully floated pass from Trueman.
Lino’s kick from the sideline was wide.
But Catalans were in deep trouble and Faatili used his power to force his way over.
Lino made no mistake this time to put Trinity out of sight.
Faatili was having a field day and the burly prop was on hand to ground another Trueman kick, bringing up his hat-trick.
Lino added the two points but wonderful Wakefield were not done yet, as they put their foot down.
There was still time for Jazz Tevaga, Oliver Pratt, Trueman and Tate to grab late tries of their own.
WAKEFIELD 58 (Faatili 3 Trueman 2 Tate 2 Tevaga Myers Hamlin-Uele Pitts tries Lino 7 goals) beat CATALANS 10 (Staines Sexton tries Sexton goal) at DIY Kitchens Stadium.
Teams:
WAKEFIELD: Josh Rourke; Will Tate, Corey Hall, Oliver Pratt, Jordan Myers; Jake Trueman, Mason Lino; Jay Pitts, Cameron Scott, Seth Nikotemo, Mike McMeeken, Tyson Smoothy, Kai Rodwell. Res: Jazz Tevaga, Caleb Hamlin-Uele, Caius Faatili, Tray Lolesio, Matty Storton.
CATALANS: Charlie Staines; Tommy Makinson, Guilermo Aispuro-Bichet, Solomona Faatape, Nick Cotric; Toby Sexton, Lewis Dodd; Josh Allen, Ugo Tison, Romain Navarette, Zac Lipowitcz, Ben Condon, Ben Garcia. Res: Franck Marisa, Harvey Wilson, Alexis Lis, Leo Darrelatour.
Referee: Aaron Moore.