Could relegation from Super League have been a blessing in disguise for Wakefield Trinity, who now have the opportunity to rebuild under an ambitious new owner as runaway favourites to win the Championship?
MONDAY, 23rd October, 2023 was a day few Wakefield fans will forget anytime soon.
It was that evening, after years of hoping for a saviour and months of waiting for completion, that the club could announce the takeover by local businessman Matt Ellis.
Trinity were at a low ebb. A month earlier, their 25-year stay in Super League had been brought to an end by relegation. Yet the transformation since has been remarkable.
“Weirdly, we’ve been relegated and things are on the up,” says Wakefield born-and-bred fullback Max Jowitt (pictured below), who has spent his whole eleven-year career at the club and whose father, Ian, played for Trinity before him. “It’s something that needed to happen, someone like Matt to come in and really apply themselves.”
Having the money is one thing – he has pledged to spend around £1.5m in his first year alone – but it must be spent wisely.
Many plans were set in motion long before the takeover was fully complete. Ellis lined up Daryl Powell as head coach, fresh from a bruising spell at Warrington but with a track record of taking Wakefield’s neighbours, Featherstone and Castleford, forward.
“Matt said: ‘I want you to do what you’ve done at previous clubs’,” explains Powell. “He wanted to make a special club and he wanted me to be a part of that. It was pretty exciting just talking to him and hearing his vision for the club.”
That included piecing together a strong squad for this year’s Championship campaign. As well as, in a rarity for relegated clubs, keeping many of the players they wanted to retain, including experienced halfbacks Luke Gale and Mason Lino, they have signed eleven new boys to date.
They are a mix of experience (Jermaine McGillvary, Iain Thornley), Championship talent with something to prove (Lachlan Walmsley, Thomas Doyle, Myles Lawford, Mathieu Cozza) and players from down under.
“There are a lot of young lads who have been brought in with loads of room for improvement, myself included,” says Doyle, a hooker signed from Keighley. “There’s experienced boys in different positions teaching the young lads, like Galey and Myles Lawford. It’s a good blend.”
As for overseas recruitment, the recent relaxation of visa requirements – allowing players aged 24 or under from Australia’s second-tier competitions to play in the UK – have been crucial. Only the most recent of the five, Ky Rodwell, has appeared in the NRL.
Powell adds: “We’ve been fortunate with the Q Cup and NSW Cup rules opening up, which has allowed us to sign some young middle-unit players which we really needed. When Matt took the club over we were so skinny in the middle unit but we’ve done a good job.”
The role of Ste Mills, who worked with Powell at Castleford and Warrington and is now Wakefield’s recruitment and salary cap manager, has been pivotal in those signings, and he isn’t the only familiar face Powell has brought on board.
Physio Matt Crowther and strength and conditioning coach Ben Cooper also both worked with him at Castleford. So too did Michael Shenton – “an outstanding head coach of the future”, says Powell – as a player, and he is now an assistant coach, leading their attack especially, alongside former Wakefield stalwart Danny Kirmond.
“Both those guys are only just out of playing,” adds Powell. “I wanted a couple of younger guys who are closely connected to the players – it’s been a long time since I played!”
Then there are the facilities. The new main stand, completed over the winter after an 18-month project, is the headline change, with new changing rooms, office spaces and a big hospitality suite.
But other areas of Belle Vue have been refurbished too. At the southern end, the bar and coaches’ offices have been renovated while the previous suite has been turned into a popular new players’ lounge complete with a kitchen and games.
“Us lads are loving it,” says Jowitt. “In between sessions we can have a game of pool and darts, there’s a coffee machine. It’s somewhere to relax. I think that’s showing out on the field, that we’ve a really tight bond on and off the pitch.”
Results have so far been broadly positive, despite Powell admitting that the pre-takeover limbo at the end of last season left them playing catch-up in terms of both the recruitment of players and staff, and the conditioning of retained players.
He says: “The players were left a little bit at the end of last season because it was so up in the air, so they didn’t have much of an off-season programme. We had to tread a little bit more lightly in pre-season. We had guys on late operations who came into pre-season late. It’s been tough piecing it all together but I do think we’re in a great place.”
As well as brushing aside Siddal, Newcastle and Hunslet ARLFC, they beat York and Barrow to reach the 1895 Cup semi-finals, but experienced their first loss at Featherstone in a Challenge Cup mudbath. Five days later, they bounced back to crush Bradford 42-12 in their Championship opener, in front of 7,221 supporters.
“The fans are buying into it as well. Fair play to them, they’ve got behind us,” says Jowitt. “Season-ticket sales are at an all-time high (over 5,000). It’s just the fans can come and watch us win again. We didn’t have a lot of that last year.”
Unsurprisingly, the club are clear Championship favourites, and Doyle says they must be aware of every other team raising their game when they take on Trinity: “Through being at other clubs who haven’t really been favourites, I know in the changing rooms it can be like ‘these are the arrogant ones, these are the ones we want to beat, these are getting paid all this’.
“From other teams’ point of view, I can see it being a reason to get themselves fired up. We need to understand that the target is on our back.”
Wakefield’s first goal is to be in Super League in twelve months’ time. Under the new club-grading system, that will be determined by various metrics instead of purely on-field performance, but having placed eleventh in the indicative rankings last year even before the takeover and stadium redevelopment, they look very well placed to go up.
But they are looking much further already: “Matt has made it very clear he doesn’t want a Wakefield team that’s just surviving,” says Jowitt.
“Over the next three, four, five years, it’s about building a team to be competing for Challenge Cups and Grand Finals and finishing top four, top six. He’s going to put all the stuff in place for us to be able to do that, and we need to deliver that.”
First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 495 (April 2024)
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