A STRONG Wakefield College side condemned Furness Raiders to their first home defeat of the season on Wednesday evening, but coach David Cairns believes the match will be more beneficial than some of their victories.

The young Raiders scored the opening try of the game through Josh Holmes, but Wakefield went on to dominate the remainder of the contest to record a 34-6 victory at Craven Park.

In truth, Cairns' side needed a proper test after they routed Huddersfield Giants Academy 112-6 in what amounted to little more than a training exercise that their players could gain little from last week.

Cairns said: "I said to their coach that it was actually better watching that than it was last week and I know that sounds odd after we got beat, but we got beat by a team that ran strong and hard.

"They were physical, they were fairly well structured, without being over-structured, but that's what we're here for.

"I would sooner have games like that and our players will learn a lot more from that, as it's a lot better than playing games like last week, when we were completely dominant.

"This was a real good test for us and we did come back into it in the second half and managed to gain more of a foothold. They had a lot of their academy lads, which is great, as that's what we're here for."

Furness took the lead after five minutes when Holmes pounced on a mistake by Josh Leeson to score, but Wakefield turned the game around through two tries from centre Wesley Bruines.

The visitors then began to stretch away a swift move led to Oliver Hill putting Lewis Murphy in at the corner and Harrison Burrows was then set up by Bruines before Robbie Butterworth's dummy led to Murphy going in for his second and make the half-time score 24-6.

Bruines completed his hat-trick two minutes into the second half when he somehow bundled his way over down the right before Butterworth turned provider again for Tommy Milburn.