Wakefield Trinity coach Chris Chester has insisted that his team will use another batch of pundits’ predictions as motivation to show they are the real deal in 2017.
Trinity surpassed all expectations last season, reaching the semi-finals of the Challenge Cup and the top eight in Super League as Chester galvanised his hometown club upon arrival at Belle Vue.
However, many experts have Wakefield finishing bottom of the league this season – something Chester says he feels is “disappointing”.
“Three or four people have got us down to finish 12th which is disappointing,” Chester said. “My guys will use that as motivation.
“We feel we probably didn’t get the credit we deserved for last season and we’ve brought better quality people into the group.
“It’s important we get off to a good start. Wakefield are renowned poor starters – I think we had two points from our first four or five games last season and we certainly don’t want to be in that position.
“We want to try and get in that top eight as early as possible and try to finish as high as we can. We had an okay season last year but we didn’t win any Super 8s games. We don’t want to just make the numbers up. We want to have a real crack this year and I think we’ve got the squad to do that.”
Prop Mitch Allgood misses out due to a concussion, but the likes of David Fifita are expected to feature.
