Mark Applegarth: Wakefield Trinity coach 'right man' despite losing run

Mark Applegarth stepped up from head of youth and an assistant role to become first-team head coach of Wakefield

Head coach Mark Applegarth believes he is capable of turning around Wakefield Trinity's form despite a ninth loss in a row against Leigh.

Applegarth stepped up from an assistant role to succeed Willie Poching, who had been dismissed despite retaining Trinity's Super League status in 2022.

The 38-year-old, who played for Trinity during his career, is yet to see his side victorious in 2023.

"Of course I think I'm the right man," Applegarth said after the Leigh loss.

"It's just a difficult process that I've got to go through, and there are some players who are giving it everything."

Among the nine defeats have been five games, including Sunday's 32-0 defeat, in which Wakefield have failed to score a point.

"Ultimately, I'm the coach, it's my responsibility," Applegarth added. "It's on all of us, but I'm head coach and the buck stops with me. We're doing one thing in training and then coming out and doing another thing in a game.

"That's the thing that rattles you as a coach. If we were doing what we said in training and applied ourselves as we do, but it wasn't working then you'd say 'alright'.

"But the basics - running onto the ball at pace, fixing up defenders and preserving the space - you can't afford not to do that because defences are too good."

Applegarth has not been helped by injury to star winger Lewis Murphy, who is likely to be out for the season, while similar absences for Lee Gaskell and Max Jowitt forced the swap of centre Corey Hall for Will Dagger with Hull KR to fill a full-back shortage.

His preparations for the new campaign were also hampered by playmaker Jacob Miller's move to rivals Castleford, back-rower James Batchelor's exit to Hull KR and prolific winger Tom Johnstone's switch to Catalans.

Stalwarts such as Jay Pitts, winger Lee Kershaw and prop Jai Whitbread were among the players that Trinity boss Applegarth highlighted for making the right efforts to turn things around.

"You can see how much it means to a few of them," Applegarth said. "They're the lads I need to build this team around, they're the sort of people that epitomise what I want Wakefield to be about.

"At the moment I don't think we've got enough of us in terms of that quality and effort that we have to build the foundation of our game on."