Trouble at Home?

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Wakefield Trinity have made a really positive start to their return to Super League in 2025. They have won three out of their opening six Super League matches. A sign of the club's progress is the genuine disappointment felt at missing out on a place in the Challenge Cup Semi Finals.

The common maxim in sport, especially for newly promoted teams, is to make sure you pick up points in winnable matches at home and not to worry as much about away results.

Yet with Wakefield, the opposite has happened. In all competitions, they have played 9 matches, losing all four home fixtures and winning all five away fixtures.

What is the reason for this? Well, if the answer was obvious I'm sure that Wakefield head coach Daryl Powell (who is the most experienced in Super League and with the exception of Warrington has done well everywhere he has been) would have figured it out.

One reason may be quality of opponent. In Wakefield's away fixtures this year, they have played Goole, Leeds, Huddersfield, Warrington and Leigh. Their home fixtures have been against Hull KR, Hull FC, St Helens, Leigh.

Their three Super League home fixtures have been against sides who sit in the top 3 of Super League. By comparison, Wakefield failing to beat Goole would have been a major shock and Huddersfield is a fixture that any newly promoted side would have targeted as an opportunity for a win.

If Wakefield had faced Goole and Huddersfield at home in the Challenge Cup rather than away, you would expect that they would have won both of those games in any event.

Notwithstanding that, Wakefield's away wins at Leeds, Warrington and Leigh in Super League were all unexpected and impressive in equal measure. Wakefield fans may correct me but I would wager that they would have considered one win from those fixtures to have been an acceptable return.

And you would expect the currently negative home form to turn. Two of Wakefield's next three home fixtures are against Castleford and Salford. Both are fixtures where Wakefield will expect to win.

So whilst Wakefield's winless home start compared to a flawless away start is unusual, it is not a cause for concern. 

We can often look at things that happen in sport and then try and construct a narrative around it. The more likely reality is that sport sometimes does not make too much sense. That unpredictability is why so many of us dedicate so much time and effort to it.

Turning back to Wakefield, I am conscious that this blog post may seem critical of their start to 2025. The intention was the opposite. Wakefield's return to Super League in 2025 so far has been impressive just perhaps taking a slightly different course that you may expect.

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