Wakefield's Grand Final dream: From second tier to Super League showdown

Two years ago, Wakefield Trinity were playing in rugby league's second tier, a club in freefall. On October 3rd, they will compete for the Super League championship at Old Trafford. The distance between those two facts—from the Championship to the Grand Final—is the distance Wakefield has traveled in the span of a single takeover and one coach's vision.

The transformation began with relegation. In 2023, Wakefield dropped out of the top flight after years of struggling near the bottom of the Super League table. But that fall, rather than marking an ending, became the pivot point. Kitchen magnate Matt Ellis completed his takeover of the club and brought in Daryl Powell as head coach. Powell had managed at the highest level before; he knew what a rebuild required. The two men set about stabilizing the organization, installing new staff, and signing players with genuine pedigree. Tom Johnstone, an England winger who had spent two years with Catalans Dragons, returned home. Mike McMeeken, who had played in three previous Grand Finals with other clubs, joined the roster. The club signed strategically and the players they had already brought in began to grow.

By the time Wakefield returned to Super League at the start of 2025, they were no longer a desperate outfit clawing for survival. They finished fourth in the regular season—a respectable position that earned them a playoff semi-final against Wigan Warriors, a team that had won 16 consecutive matches and was chasing a second domestic treble in three years. Few gave Wakefield a realistic chance. The Warriors were the favorites, the momentum team, the ones everyone expected to advance.

On Saturday, Wakefield dismantled that narrative entirely. They fell behind early but responded with precision and control. When Wigan's Adam Keighran received a yellow card in the second half, Wakefield seized the moment. They scored 33 unanswered points to win 33-6—a performance so complete that Kevin Brown, the former England half-back working as a BBC pundit, called it "definitely their best ever performance in Super League." Johnstone scored two of Wakefield's five tries. The victory was not a fluke or a lucky escape; it was a statement of arrival.

For Johnstone, the moment carried personal weight. He had begun his career at Wakefield and had watched the club struggle. When Ellis and Powell approached him about returning, Johnstone visited Ellis's kitchen factory with his agent. "We had a chat about everything they want to achieve and everything they promised to do," Johnstone said. "We left and said: 'If they do any of that, it's going to be something special.' I couldn't say no." He returned, and now he stands on the threshold of a Super League title with the club where he started.

McMeeken, the captain, has played in Grand Finals before—three of them with other teams. He was part of the England side that reached a World Cup semi-final on home soil in 2022. But he understood the significance of what Wakefield had just accomplished. "To take in an experience like this is up there as one of the best moments of my career so far," he said.

Powell will face Warrington Wolves in the final, and he will do so against the club he coached for a season and a half before departing midway through 2023. But Powell has made clear that the narrative is not about him or his redemption. "It's about the players and how they're writing different scripts every time we take the field," he said. Whoever wins on October 3rd will be a first-time Super League champion. Warrington has been to Grand Finals before. Wakefield has not. For Powell, the task ahead is simple: play the game as they did against Wigan, and they have a genuine chance. Eighty minutes stand between Wakefield and a championship that, two years ago, would have seemed impossible.