Before the Million Pound Game, eight months ago, Danny Kirmond admitted that defeat to Bradford could have resulted in Wakefield’s players losing their livelihoods if they were relegated to the Championship. Yet the club who narrowly avoided relegation to the second tier in that game know that victory against Leeds on Friday may secure a spot in Super League for 2017, as well as a top-eight finish. Some turnaround for a side who won three of their 23 regular-season games last year.
But for Wakefield this game – one which is a microcosm of the most bizarre Super League season in history – has more than just an impact on themselves. With the end of the regular season only five games away, plenty of permutations exist, and as well as rubber-stamping their own future, Wakefield have the opportunity to consign last year’s champions and their fierce West Yorkshire rivals to a bottom-four finish too.
“I suppose if we could pick a game for the fans to give them something to celebrate then it would be against Leeds, wouldn’t it,” said Kirmond, the Wildcats captain. “It would be great to beat them to secure the top eight. I think a win on Friday would probably do that now, but we’re not resting on our laurels and targeting just finishing eighth.”
Given how close Wakefield came to disaster last year, Kirmond was ridiculed when he predicted a top-eight finish was the aim for 2016. Barring an improbable swing in results, that goal will be achieved with a number of weeks to spare. And although the 30-year-old is entitled to his I-told-you-so moment, he is instead focussing on reassessing his and Wakefield’s aims for the second half of the season.
“I can understand why people are making a big deal out of us being in the eight given what happened last year, but we want to aim higher,” he said. “Six weeks into the year when it was really topsy-turvy and not going too well, we’d have snatched your hand off at a top-eight finish.
“It’s easy to look down but I think we can actually look up at the moment and eye some teams above us. The top four will be difficult but let’s try and finish somewhere like fifth – what a season that would be.”
As a local lad, Kirmond takes extra joy in being at the heart of Wakefield’s revival as an established Super League side. “I’m immensely proud as captain of where we’ve come in the last 12 months. We’ve spoken about changing perceptions of Wakefield and with the right people running the club off the field, it’s starting to show on it,” he said.
Like Leeds, Huddersfield’s spot in the bottom four can be confirmed this weekend. They travel to Salford on Friday 24 hours on from the departure of the coach Paul Anderson, and candidates are already beginning to declare an interest in the job before the Super 8s.
One of those is the former Leigh coach Paul Rowley, who is set to take over at the new League 1 side Toronto from the beginning of next season. But he has expressed an interest in joining his former club on a short-term basis for the remainder of 2016.
“I can’t turn my back on Toronto as I’ve made an agreement with them,” Rowley told the Guardian. “I’m excited by that challenge but if an opportunity arose to help Huddersfield in the short-term, myself and Simon Finnigan – my assistant at Toronto – then I’d be honoured and delighted to do so as it’s a fantastic club.”
