Wakefield Trinity boss asks questions of “ridiculous” Super League schedule

Wakefield Trinity head coach Daryl Powell has taken aim at the Super League fixture schedule, labelling it as “ridiculous”.

Trinity will travel to face St Helens on Friday night, despite hosting the Red Vee in Round Two, whilst they will also play Castleford Tigers in both Round Eight and Round Ten at Rivals Round and Magic Weekend respectively.

They will also play Warrington Wolves for a second time in Super League this season in Round Eleven before they play a single league game against the likes of Salford, Huddersfield or Wigan. Incredibly, they don’t play the Giants until Round 19 in mid-July.

Speaking to the media ahead of Friday night’s trip to St Helens, Powell seemed to take aim at the fixture scheduling as he argued that it fails to give a fair reflection of the table with fans, pundits and coaches unable to get a “true perspective of the competition”.

“I do think fixture list is kind of crazy,” he admitted, adding: “We haven’t played Huddersfield or Salford yet and then we play Cas twice (in the next three weeks) and we will have played Saints twice. Really madness really. So I don’t think you can really get a sense of the table.

“Quite a lot of teams have played against Cas and Salford and we really haven’t. I’m not saying there’s anything in that, I just think you can’t really get a true perspective of the competition. So I’m not reading too much into the table at the moment.”

Wakefield Trinity boss asks questions of “ridiculous” Super League schedule

Despite not facing the bottom two teams in Super League, Wakefield still sit in eighth with Trin just one point outside of the top six with Daryl Powell’s side having picked all six points up away from home this season.

Speaking further on the fixture issues, he explained: “We will have played Saints twice, we haven’t played Huddersfield, we’re going to play Cas twice before we’ve played Huddersfield or Salford. I don’t understand.

“They say it’s a computer that’s picked it, but where is this computer? I don’t know, it’s just ridiculous.”

He would admit: “There’s nothing we can do about it. We just crack on and we take each week as it comes. Obviously we plan what we’re doing every block of games, every block of four games and changes slightly when the Challenge Cup comes around but obviously we’re out of that now so it creates a new look at the season with a couple of blank weekends,

“It’s madness really how it’s been put together but we’ll just crack on. I don’t think it affects the end of the season too much but I don’t think it’s a good look for the season as you’re rolling through it.”

St Helens versus Wakefield Trinity isn’t the only game this week where teams meet each other for a second time with Salford Red Devils hosting Leeds Rhinos on Thursday evening, as they did in Round Two of the competition.

🔙 Three changes for Trinity as we get ready to take on @Saints1890!

➡️ Max Jowitt, Seth Nikotemo, Jayden Myers
⬅️ Oliver Russell, Josh Griffin, Matty Russell

👉🏻 https://t.co/kf7ViVeoo4#UpTheTrin pic.twitter.com/RxfVWOrq5b

— Wakefield Trinity (@WTrinityRL) April 9, 2025