Wakefield Trinity reaction: New signings Renouf Atoni and Morgan Smith praised after win at Leeds Rhinos
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New Zealand-born front-rower Atoni has played in the NRL for Canterbury Bulldogs, while Smith - a half-back or hooker - joined Trinity from Featherstone Rovers.
Atoni marked his first appearance for Wakefield with a try and Applegarth felt he put his best foot forward.
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Hide Ad“That’s what you want,” he said. “He has been in the country about 10 days and he was desperate to play.
![Wakefield Trinity coach Mark Applegarth at the Boxing Day win over Rhinos. Picture by Steve Riding.](https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/webimg/b25lY21zOmFmNzkwN2U0LWQ1MjMtNDdhYi1hNmU2LTdlMjRkYTcwOTJhYjo1OTk3MGI5Yi0wZjYxLTRhYzItOGZhNS1lODNmMWIxZmNhYjI=.jpg?crop=3:2,smart&width=640&quality=65)
![Wakefield Trinity coach Mark Applegarth at the Boxing Day win over Rhinos. Picture by Steve Riding.](/img/placeholder.png)
“He is an exciting player and hopefully one who will take a few by surprise this year.”
Of Smith, Applegarth said: “He plays some great eyes-up rugby and he will definitely be in the mix with Lee [Gaskell] and Mason [Lino] for round one.
“There’s a pretty difficult choice there and he put his hand up to play nine for us, with Liam Hood being injured with a bit of a calf strain.
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Hide Ad“Harry Bowes has also had a bit of a calf strain and hasn’t trained until a few days ago and for Morgan to play 40 minutes at nine and then move to half-back and play both [roles] how he did, you know you’ve got a good player on your hands.
![New Trinity signing Morgan Smith closes down Rhinos' James McDonnell. Picture by Steve Riding.](https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/webimg/b25lY21zOjRjODk5MjA5LTNhZmYtNDBhNi1hNjBhLTg4MjQzNjBhMzNhMDoyN2RlM2Y1NS1iZjI1LTQ2MTktYmIyZC1mNDQwNWE3OGQyMDI=.jpg?crop=3:2,smart&width=640&quality=65)
![New Trinity signing Morgan Smith closes down Rhinos' James McDonnell. Picture by Steve Riding.](/img/placeholder.png)
“He will be a really handy addition to our squad and I am pleased he has gone out there and shown what he can do.”
Trinity scored five tries in the final quarter to get Applegarth’s reign off to a winning start and the coach reflected: “I think both teams will be walking away pretty happy with what they got out of it.”
He said: “We’ve been working hard on certain things in training over the first block of pre-season, pre-Christmas and when we got that composure with ball in hand and we started knocking a few sets out in areas of the field we wanted to, I thought we looked okay.
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Hide Ad“Obviously there’s a few areas we need to fix up on and some things we haven’t covered yet, but I’m pretty pleased.”
Max Jowitt suffered a knock in the second half, but Applegarth said “It’s nothing major, just a bit of a bump to his side.”