These are the nights Matt Ellis dreamed of bringing to Belle Vue when he took control of his boyhood club three years ago: but not even he could have imagined all of this could be happening quite so quickly.
For the first time in their history, Wakefield Trinity are 80 minutes away from the Super League Grand Final. It may sound quite trivial in the scheme of things but this is a club who have spent the majority of the summer era residing in the competition’s lower reaches, which finally culminated with relegation to the Championship in 2023.
That coincided with Ellis’s purchase of the club and some bold promises about where Wakefield would go in a short space of time. His claims that he would turn Trinity into a Super League force were largely met with laughter: but very few people are laughing right now – except for Ellis of course, who delivered his traditional fist pumps on the pitch after his club created history.
After storming through the Championship in 2024, Trinity surprised everyone last year by reaching the playoffs in their first season back in Super League. This year was supposed to be trickier; no longer an unfancied side, some expected Wakefield and Daryl Powell to be found out. But this club, under Ellis and Powell, are making a mockery of the predictions once again.
Their route through to a first Super League playoff semi-final was ultimately straightforward. Even the sending off of their prop Emre Guler for a moment of madness when he lashed out at a Leigh player couldn’t derail Wakefield. They had far too much class, quality and physicality for a Leigh side who beat Trinity at this stage last year, but couldn’t repeat it here.
This was Wakefield’s night. Led by an outstanding effort from the forwards including Tyson Smoothy and Caius Faatili, Trinity now advance to the final four – where they will face Wigan or Leeds for a place at Old Trafford. They will be underdogs but they have been underdogs before. Nobody can write off Super League’s newest force now, surely.
“We’re in such a good place, the team and the club is in a good place,” Powell said. “It’s all happened quicker than we might have thought, to do what we did in getting the playoffs the first year back in Super League and now in the semis.” They dominated almost the entire evening, but led by just six points at the break in West Yorkshire.
Tries for Smoothy and Tom Johnstone put them in control but when Leigh responded on the stroke of half-time through David Armstrong, you wondered if that would spur the Leopards into life. However, they failed to do anything of significance when it mattered most, and their season ended with a whimper.
“It was very frustrating to watch and certainly not the performance we planned for,” their coach, Adrian Lam, said. “We started really poorly in that second half and it was pretty much all over from there.”
Isaiah Vagana scored a decisive try to make it 18-6 shortly after the restart before Faatili’s score put daylight between the teams. From there it felt as though Wakefield would run out convincing winners before Guler’s moment of madness, striking Owen Trout and being sent off, appeared to reopen the door for Leigh.
They looked as though they would take it too when Lachlan Lam scored with 15 minutes remaining, but Wakefield tightened the proverbial screw and closed the game out with minimal fuss, with Max Jowitt’s penalty giving them a significant buffer. The final scoring act went to Leigh when Innes Senior touched down, but by then, their season was over.
As for Wakefield? They break new ground again next week – and given the speed of their rise so far, do not rule out them creating more history once again.