The following article contains spoilers from the episode of Emmerdale dated March 26. It hasn’t aired on ITV1 yet, but can be viewed on ITVX.

Joe Tate (Ned Porteous) has a lot in Emmerdale, but the one thing he doesn’t have is a very large and loyal family.

However, his current enemy Cain Dingle (Jeff Hordley) does, which proved particularly useful in today’s episode.

Earlier in the week, Joe announced to Robert Sugden (Ryan Hawley) that he’d be selling the herd of cows on Butler’s Farm. Once Matty Barton (Ash Palmisciano) and Mackenzie Boyd (Lawrence Robb) got word of what was going on, they headed down to Wishing Well to update Cain with the gossip.

The latest instalment of the ITV soap opened with a hooded figure stealing the cows from Butler’s. It didn’t take long for Joe to learn that they were missing, and he immediately knew who to accuse.

At the Dingles, Cain played dumb and told Joe that he had nothing to do with the theft, but this was only half true. While Cain didn’t physically move the herd, he was aware of who stole it.

After Matty called Cain and reminded him that the bull has a tracker on it, panic started to arise as the family feared they were about to get caught. Cain called Belle Dingle (Eden Taylor-Draper), the actual thief, and told her to do something because Joe would soon get the tracking app on his phone and be on his way.

As Joe headed down a country path following the app, he was distracted by Charity Dingle (Emma Atkins), who was at the side of the road in pain. Joe reluctantly went to help Charity, who claimed she was in labour.

Her plan to prevent Joe from finding Belle didn’t play out as well as Charity had hoped, as Ross Barton (Michael Parr) arrived and tried to assist in taking Charity to hospital.

Fortunately, the time Joe spent getting his hand squeezed and wishing the ground would swallow him up so he didn’t have to help Charity with the labour was enough for Belle to get the tracker and launch it into a tree.

As this was going on, Cain and Mackenzie were in the pub, quietly wondering whether they’d manage to sell the herd without getting caught by Joe.

They were confronted by Robert and Aaron Dingle (Danny Miller), who soon discovered Cain’s plan.

The couple were surprised to learn that Cain had organised for the cows to get stolen, with the intention of selling them and splitting the money between the new Dingle Farm, and Butler’s.

The plan was chaotic, but ultimately a great success. The Dingle clan are usually mocked over the fact there are so many of them, but the thought of outsmarting Joe meant the majority of them were on hand all day to ensure they won.

Once Joe had established what just played out, he had to tell a totally oblivious Kim Tate (Claire King), who had fallen hook, line and sinker to Chas Dingle’s (Lucy Pargeter) performance and spent the day with her getting drunk.

Annoyed and embarrassed, Kim declared war, and the Dingles were more than ready to deal with whatever the Tates throw their way next.