Wakefield Trinity may have been relegated but the club is throwing its weight around after getting new owners and are widely expected to return to Super League and become a mainstay under Matt Ellis and Daryl Powell.
The club have also made its ambition clear in terms of targeting major signings and that has led to reports that they will move to sign Tom Johnstone at the end of 2024 upon the expiry of his current contract.
Johnstone left Wakefield at the end of 2022 and showed he belonged at the top of Super League with Catalans Dragons.
Powell was asked about the rumour he could return to the club. When asked if he could shed any light on the matter, Powell said: “Not really, just there’s rumours about everywhere, about all sorts of things. I think the one thing we want to be is a team in the top four in Super League so I suppose those sort of rumours will continue yeah but we want to be signing top quality players I haven’t got any news on anybody at the moment but you know for certain we’ll be in the market for some of the top players in the game.”
Powell said this after an encouraging defeat to Leeds Rhinos on Boxing Day. Asked how he was enjoying things at Trinity, he said: “Yeah, well half time if you’d have asked me, we were flying and everything was pretty positive really. You’re asking me at the end of the game, I enjoyed it, it’s a new challenge for me, it’s a new group, we’re trying to build a culture and a way of playing and a way of being and I think it’s good.
“We’ve put down a decent marker there in the first half to show how good a team we are going to be as we move into the season so yeah I’m looking forward to it, should be a great challenge, we get a bit of time off now, which is spending a bit of time with my family, and then we can crack on into 2024 and hopefully it will be a big year for us.”
