Wakefield Trinity owner Matt Ellis has admitted that before he bought the club his favourite memories as a fan were simply the club ‘staying up’ in Super League and beating rivals Castleford Tigers.
Just three years after purchasing the club, his side are now on the precipice of history with Wakefield Trinity set to contest a first Super League Grand Final as they bid to win a first top division title since 1968.
Back in 2023, after a season that had seen the club relegated, it was impossible to even dream of such an opportunity, never mind make it a reality but that’s what Ellis has done and it started with his head coach appointment.
Daryl Powell is the man who has made things change around WF1, helping the club earn immediate promotion back to Super League before overseeing a rare play-off appearance in 2025, and now backing it up with a first Grand Final appearance.
The other contender for Wakefield alongside Daryl Powell
Speaking to media, including Serious About Rugby League’s sister site The Yorkshire Evening Post, on Wednesday at Belle Vue, Ellis revealed that Daryl Powell was always the man for him – even months before he officially bought the club.
“I’d spoken to Michael [Carter, then-owner of Wakefield] after about six or eight games of that ’23 season and I said, I’m going to have a go for Daryl just on the off chance that he’s not liking it over there,” Ellis revealed.
“I’d said that right then. He was my number one choice. Him and Paul Rowley probably at the time would have been my choices.”
Powell’s Warrington started that 2023 season with eight wins from eight but a huge dip in form and a defeat to Wakefield led to Powell’s sacking, with Ellis admitting: “He just fell in my lap really as an appointment because he was the one that I’d been talking about.
“I’d seen what he’d done at Cas. We’re only ten minutes away, aren’t we, so you hear a lot of it and I know at work I’ve got all Cas fans. You see it all, what he’d achieved there. He’d turned the club around lovely so he was my number one choice.”
Powell, backed heavily by the Ellis family, has overseen the club’s huge change in fortunes and ensured Ellis no longer has to treasure memories such as ‘staying up’ or beating Castleford as his favourites, with the club destined to create more memories for their revitalised fan base.
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Why 2024 saved Wakefield Trinity and put them on the path
In another quirk around Saturday’s Grand Final against Warrington, who have an even longer top division title drought than Wakefield – last winning in 1955 – the game also falls 11 years after the club’s Million Pound Game against Bradford Bulls.
Wakefield won that game but for Bradford, it sparked over a decade in the second tier with the Bulls only returning to Super League ahead of the 2026 season, and such a stay in the wilderness was a genuine fear of Ellis’ when he bought the club after their 2023 relegation.
“That’s what I’m most proud of, that I think it could have been a long time back. We could have been out of it for not just one year,” he explained.
“This club in 23, I’m not bigging myself up here, but I don’t think we’d have just smashed straight back up. It might have been a few years like a Widnes, like Bradford’s tale.
“I don’t think we were just down and rebuilt straight away. I think the change of ownership we needed to do that, because it needed some investment. We’d committed to this stand that had gone £2,000,000 overdue so that really put us into potentially financial issues.
“Michael had put everything he could into it. I’m not slagging anybody off, but we were set for a few years out.”
Instead, Wakefield won all but one game in the Championship and coasted back into Super League and from there, they’ve never looked back. In fact, they’ve simply kept marching on and they’re now 80 minutes from history.
