Hull FC 13-31 Wakefield: Late points surge clinches victory
By Press Association Sport
Last Updated: 11/08/18 12:35am
Wakefield Trinity launched their Super 8s campaign with a 31-13 victory at Hull FC, thanks to a final-quarter points spree.
Chris Chester's visitors trailed 13-7 with full-back Max Jowitt in the sin bin midway through the second half.
But tries from Bill Tupou, Pauli Pauli and Tom Johnstone plus six Ryan Hampshire goals ensured Trinity followed up their recent record-breaking 72-10 home win over the Black and Whites with another success.
Despite that recent bout of travel sickness, Hull had held mastery over Trinity at the KCOM Stadium with Trinity's last victory a 23-16 success in May 2014. But they had no answer to Wakefield's late power surge which lifts them above Lee Radford's side in the table.
Eight of FC's starting team featured in Radford's initial 13 for the humiliation at Wakefield but they did hand a first-team debut to 20-year-old ex-London Broncos prop, Lewis Bienek.
Hull made the best possible opening to their revenge mission with prop Scott Taylor charging over from Danny Houghton's short pass for a Marc Sneyd-converted try after 10 minutes.
Slowly, though, Wakefield gained territorial superiority and Ben Jones-Bishop dropped the ball over he try line in one promising raid.
And after a torrential downpour ensured handling suddenly became a lot trickier, Trinity levelled after 32 minutes.
Prop Craig Huby was sufficiently close to the try line to grasp Kyle Wood's assist and plunge over. Hampshire, who kicked 12 of his 13 goal attempts in last month's game, added the extras to tie the scores.
Ex-Hull half-back Jacob Miller and Sneyd traded drop goals in the final 90 seconds of the half to make it 7-7 at half-time.
A rare Danny Houghton 40/20 turned into a bigger advantage when Jowitt was sin-binned by referee Jack Smith for throwing the ball away.
Moments later Sneyd missed a testing penalty awarded against Justin Horo but then turned down another easier opportunity after Pauli's infringement.
It proved a wise decision as full-back Jamie Shaul carved open 12-man Trinity after 56 minutes. Sneyd's conversion put FC 13-7 in front.
Hampshire's 60th-minute penalty cut the home lead to 13-9 before Jowitt's return further boosted Wakefield's comeback chances.
And they made the most of his comeback by scoring 22 points in the final 20 minutes with Hampshire finishing with 14 of them to his name.
