Wakefield Trinity search for new training base as Matt Ellis looks to bring 'disjointed' club together

Ellis took over at Belle Vue in October and has wasted no time in putting his stamp on the club.

The millionaire owner of DIY Kitchens has installed Daryl Powell as the club's new head coach and overseen an eye-catching recruitment drive while working on further stadium improvements.

The pitch at Belle Vue underwent a transformation at the end of last year but the new hybrid surface must be managed during the winter months, leaving Wakefield training out of town.

Ellis has made a new training base a priority after identifying a club-wide issue.

"A thing I've been looking at over the last few weeks is the training facilities," he told The Yorkshire Post. "We're down at Hemsworth at the minute but the club is in desperate need of a new training facility.

"The club is a little bit disjointed at the minute. The academy train here, the scholars are training there and the first team are training over there.

"One of the things I'd like to do is bring it together and find a way of getting a Wakefield Trinity home, a training facility.

"I'm going to speak to the council to see what land is available around here to see whether we can do that.

"I'm going to each department and asking what their biggest problem is and they're all saying not having a permanent home."

The ongoing redevelopment of Belle Vue – which features a new East Stand and was started by his predecessors – has tied Ellis' hands to a large extent.

However, he can see the benefits of staying at a ground that has been Trinity's home since 1895.

"The complex they were looking at up at Newmarket included some land," said Ellis. "The owners at that time were on the right track thinking about a new stadium with a new training facility next to it.

"But you look at some of the stadiums that are in Super League now and think if we could get this back to 10,000, we have got something pretty unique in the game in a 150-year-old stadium that we can get bouncing still."

Ellis plans to modernise the Western Terrace and increase the capacity of the recently redeveloped North Stand.

Improving the facilities will give Trinity the best chance of competing with rival clubs for local talent, according to Ellis.

"Wakefield have gone down the pecking order over a 50-year period," he added.

"We need to get that training facility, get the west terrace sorted and bits of the north terrace because there are a few rough edges to that build.

"Over the next four or five years, we need to get the first team back in Super League competing – but if we don't think of the future, we're not going to have long-term success.

"You need to have some good, young international players coming through. Everybody talks about Wakefield having a good youth set-up but I'd always ask how many international players we've produced.

"If we get a place that feels like our own, we're going to have a good chance of getting youth players to come here more regularly than they do now.

"If we can get lads through that become first-team players and then internationals, it's a knock-on effect. We've got to make a hub for them to come here."