York Knights vs Wakefield Trinity Prediction: Pick Pratt as Knights beat handicap

Wakefield Trinity look to complete a perfect March on Friday night, when they head to the LNER Community Stadium to face the newly-promoted York Knights bidding to win their fourth straight game of the month (20:00 GMT, Sky Sports+).

Trinity have enjoyed three home wins in a row but can they reproduce that form on the road against a Knights side who have already shown they are not here to make up the numbers? See below for my York Knights vs Wakefield Trinity predictions, full team news and match odds from Betfred.

York Knights vs Wakefield Trinity Odds

Team News

Wakefield almost produced a double win for our followers seven days ago as Oliver Pratt returned in the Anytime Tryscorer market at 6/5 and Trinity appeared set to secure the predicted six-to-10-point win over Leigh at 4/1. A last-minute Leopards try thwarted that value bet, but Daryl Powell's side have found some real form in March that has moved them into the top six.

And Powell is finally able to benefit from some stability in selection, making just one change to the side who picked up no fresh injuries last week.

Tray Lolesio went to Bradford on a short-term loan last week, but he is back and comes into a 21-man squad to replace outside back Will Tate. I would expect the matchday 17 to remain the same.

In a big boost for the home side, York include their talisman Paul McShane after he was cleared of a serious hand injury. Sam Cook is involved again after impressing on loan from Newcastle last week. Will Dagger is also included.

Handicap 3-way: York +10 @ 10/11

This is a really difficult contest to call between two teams showing excellent early-season promise. Wakefield had injury issues in the three quarters for the first weeks of the year but a balanced side has brought some excellent form and results, not least that thrilling comeback win to dump rivals Leeds out of the Betfred Challenge Cup.

York, meanwhile, have beaten the two Hull sides and given both Wigan and Warrington a scare in their five games so far. The only game in which they have not made a contest of it was away at Leeds.

So this could be a cracker. Wakefield are favourites to win the game as you would expect, and the handicap actually gives York a 10-point start which may feel tempting. The Knights got within a single point away to Wigan last week, and lost by eight in their last home Betfred Super League game - that entertaining 38-30 defeat to Warrington.

I keep expecting York not to turn up, with many feeling this is a side over-performing and which will start to come unstuck when the 'bigger' sides get into their groove. That may well be a little unfair on York, who could well have more to show than the four Super League points they have on the board so far.

I'm expecting Mark Applegarth's side to continue to be hard to beat at home and am finding the handicap a real toss of the coin this week. My gut tells me that Wakefield are in good enough form to win this game, but York have been easily the most difficult side to predict thus far. As such, I'm going to take York with the 10-point start.

Oliver Pratt Anytime Tryscorer @ 1/1

There should be plenty of good options in the tryscorer market this week if York's points-per-game aggregates are anything to go by. The Knights generally play in high-scoring games, which means bags of opportunities to find a winner. Last week's thrilling 23-22 loss at Wigan saw seven tries from six different scorers, and the previous league game against Warrington saw York outscored seven tries to five.

Wigan tested out York down both sides to decent effect last weekend, with left winger Liam Marshall and right centre Adam Keighran both scoring, and as such my instincts are again to back Wakefield's outside backs.

Max Jowitt has scored a try in each of his last three games against York and is priced at 5/4 to do so again at an implied 44.4% probability.

Pratt is the player I like best with ball in hand in this Trinity team, and after obliging for us last week I am going to stick with the highly-rated 21-year-old centre to score again. Pratt actually had a spell on loan at York as a teenager and will be pretty keen to remind the Knights fans what he can do.

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