Wakefield Trinity centre Bill Tupou inspired his side to a crucial 36-8 victory over Widnes Vikings to maintain their push for a top-four finish in Betfred Super League.
The 27-year-old Kiwi was in sparkling form for Trinity as he showed tremendous pace to score two tries and created two others for winger Mason Caton-Brown and was a constant thorn in the Vikings defence.
As well as Tupou and Caton-Brown's scores, Wakefield claimed other tries through Sam Williams and Tinirau Arona with Liam Finn landing six goals to secure a convincing win.
Give @MasonCatonBrown an inch and he'll take a yard! Another brace for the winger this eveningðŸ‘🼠pic.twitter.com/ACI7jFSUsX
— Wakefield Trinity (@WTrinityRL) July 14, 2017
Defeat for Widnes means they will finish in the bottom two and will face four games away and three at home as they fight for their Super League lives in the Middle 8s.
Widnes' points came from a solitary try by Joe Mellor and two goals from Stefan Marsh which took him past the 250-point mark in his Super League career.
#SLWidWak
— Betfred Super League (@SuperLeague) July 14, 2017
A comfortable win for @WTrinityRL at @WidnesRL pic.twitter.com/Bon5tSCaCy
Wakefield coach Chris Chester praised the performance of Tupou: "Bill has been outstanding all season and he carried the ball very well again tonight, he defended well and was a real handful throughout.
"I thought the whole forward pack put in a fantastic effort and the two halves controlled the game for us.
"We are peaking at the right time and we can hopefully take that confidence through to the Super 8s competition. If we get a result next week against St Helens it will mean four home fixtures which will be massive for us."
Good win tonight! YTBs!! ðŸ‰ðŸ‰ Shout out to the @WTrinityRL fans! 🔵⚪ï¸ðŸ”´ pic.twitter.com/yAo5f7vy7i
— Mason Caton-Brown (@MasonCatonBrown) July 14, 2017
Widnes coach Denis Betts said: "It was patchy stuff again. We started okay, got back into the game at 8-6 and it was pretty even and we were in the mix, and then we put ourselves under pressure.
"Our completion rate was atrocious, we just can't keep hold of the ball. Our skill in the game at times was average and it felt players were just trying to get through the game."
