Leigh beat Wakefield to set up Wigan semi-final

Play-off eliminator for Betfred Super League

Leigh (18) 26

Goals: O’Brien 5

Wakefield (0) 10

In their first Super League play-off elimination game, the Leigh Leopards defeated Wakefield Trinity to advance to the semi-finals.

The visitors controlled the first half thanks to tries from Keanan Brand, Isaac Liu, and Josh Charnley, who finished nine points clear of Trinity in the regular season.

Wakefield had hoped in the opening period of the second half thanks to Jayden Myers’ response, but Cameron Scott’s superb solo try was only consolation due to a Gareth O’Brien penalty and Alec Tuitavake’s score.

After a fantastic first season back in the Super League, Leigh and Trinity faced their first play-off appearance in 13 years.

On their final trip to the Leopards Den, Daryl Powell’s team won 40-14, and Josh Griffin almost had a dream start when he scored O’Brien’s first-minute clearance kick but couldn’t gather as a clear run to the line awaited.

The visitors, who had Matty Storton in the second row injured in five minutes, were essentially done with the first half.

Umyla Hanley scored Brand’s seventh try in four games and his 17th Super League try of the season from Leigh who soon made it easy on the front.

As Wakefield were penned deep into their own territory by rampant Leigh, three tacklers combined to stop Hanley’s charge for the line while Frankie Halton was held up a metre short.

Trinity’s goalline defense resisted pressure, but Liu’s powerful run resulted in a battered backline that finally cracked.

With a 40-20 lead, Lachlan Lam kept the fast-forward momentum, and Charnley was instrumental scrum-half-half-frenchly fed Charnley to cross in the left corner a few plays later.

Within four minutes of the restart, the visitors desperately needed the next try. O’Brien quickly reacted with a high kick that Mason Lino had rebounded from, and Myers performed a spectacular diving one-handed kick.

O’Brien received a momentum-stalling penalty right away before Tuitavake crashed over on the hour to put the hosts out of sight with a score of 26-4.

Adrian Lam, head coach of the Leigh Leopards, told BBC Radio Manchester:

When our attitude is right and there is effort to support it, we are capable of doing that. That’s taken a long time, but hopefully we can reproduce that next week.

We were 80 minutes away from Old Trafford last year, and we were in this position, and I’m grateful for that.

Because I knew we needed to do that to advance, “I made a lot of changes.”

We’ll have to wait and see whether this team is prepared for that or not next week, but I’m just grateful that this group of players is beginning to come together as a group.

Daryl Powell, the head coach of Wakefield Trinity, told BBC Radio Leeds:

Leigh exceeded what we’ve seen before, in my opinion, by a few notches. I thought they managed to do a fantastic job.

“We were strong in the second half, but we just didn’t get enough tonight.” Every time we tried to make things difficult, we would put the ball down.

You can’t have that in these games, I don’t think we had many boys who would hold their hands up and say they were at their best tonight.

Hughes, Tuitavake, Davis, and Dwyer make changes.

Wakefield includes McMeeken, Hood, Faatili, Griffin, Storton, Pitts, Myers, Scott, Pratt, Johnstone, Trueman, Lino, Myers, Myers, Scott, Myers, Scott, Pratt, and Scott.

Rodwell, Nikotemo, Atoni, and Smith swapped.