Wakefield Trinity coach makes 2026 ambition clear as plans for success laid out

After an eye-catching first year back in Super League, Wakefield Trinity boss Daryl Powell has made their target for 2026 clear: a top-four finish.

This time last year, Wakefield were preparing to play their final game of the ‘regular’ season in the second tier having already lifted both the 1895 Cup and Championship League Leaders’ Shield.

12 months on, their Super League season has just come to an end – losing 26-10 at Leigh Leopards on Friday night in the play-off eliminators having finished sixth on the ladder.

Trinity have earned plenty of praise throughout 2025, but Powell insists the journey is only just beginning.

Wakefield Trinity coach makes 2026 ambition clear as plans for success laid out

Speaking after their play-off exit at the Leopards’ Den, he made no secret of his and the club’s ambitions for next year.

Powell explained: “We want to be a top-four team.

“We’ve lost a lot of tight games this year that would have seen us be a little bit higher up the table, probably in that top four if we’d have won four or five of them.

“If you look at our stats, you can see some clear things that we need to work on in pre-season and get better at.

“Players are coming in with different qualities and you hope you’ve got your recruitment right.

“Some of it is personnel, some of it is what we do as coaches, some of it is player development and player experience.

“If we get that right, we’ll become a more formidable team next year.”

‘The season itself has set us a real platform. When the dust has settled on tonight, we’ll be really proud of what we’ve done’

Last month, Powell – who turned 60 in July – penned a new long-term deal with Wakefield which will see him remain at Belle Vue until the end of the 2029 campaign, if all goes to plan.

The club’s trajectory has been an upward one since he took charge ahead of the 2024 campaign, which saw them scoop all three honours on offer in the second tier having beaten Toulouse Olympique in the Championship Grand Final.

Reflecting on the defeat at Leigh and Trinity’s year on the whole, Powell said: “It was a disappointing night.

“We just didn’t handle the intensity, and it’s been a great season, but we got a lot of lessons handed to us tonight, both from Leigh and just the game itself in how you handle play-off games.

“The season itself has set us a real platform. When the dust has settled on tonight, we’ll be really proud of what we’ve done, and we are anyway.

“Those sort of nights have got to fuel your fire moving forward into pre-season and then going into next season.

“We’re on a journey to play like Leigh did tonight, we just weren’t able to for whatever reason.

“We’ve had a great year, learned a lot about ourselves and probably learned more tonight, lessons that can help you in the future.”