Danny Kirmond 'confident' he will return before the end of the season

Trinity skipper Danny Kirmond is confident that he will be able to make his return from injury before the end of the season.
Danny Kirmond. Picture: Tony Johnson.Danny Kirmond. Picture: Tony Johnson.
Danny Kirmond. Picture: Tony Johnson.

The 32-year-old sustained a knee injury during Wakefield’s 44-22 win over Widnes Vikings at the end of June.

The second-rower required surgery and initial fears were that he would miss the remainder of the campaign.

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But he has revealed that his recovery is progressing well and he hopes to make an appearance before the end of 2018.

“I am really optimistic, I am not setting any unrealistic goals but everything is definitely going in the right direction,” said Kirmond.

“Everything is progressing quite quickly and I am looking forward to being able to run again as it has been quite a while.

“It has been frustrating but hopefully I should be able to start running next week so that is the first goal ticked off.

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“Initially it looked like it was definitely going to be next year when I could come back.

“But with the way it is progressing I might actually get a game, we haven’t set a target of a specific game or anything like that.

“It would definitely be nice to get back out there before the end of the season and I am pretty confident that I will be able to do that.

“The only thing with these sort of injuries is that you feel good one day but the next day you can feel like you have gone back a couple of steps.

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“So I know not to push it too hard and get ahead of where I am and where I should be but I am optimistic.”

Kirmond believes that a top-eight finish highlights another successful season for Wakefield.

It is a far cry to three years ago when Trinity were preparing for the Super League Qualifiers.

Trinity have secured a top-eight finish for the last three seasons and Kirmond has hailed the togetherness of the squad as one of the main factors behind the recent success.

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“We have learnt over the past few years that we are a good team and that we can challenge these top teams,” he added.

“We have kept the core group of players together and that has been massively important. You learn how to play together and trust each other as well.

“There is a lot of trust in this group, we really believe in one another’s ability and I think that shows with where we have got again this year.

“We need to turn that belief that we have in ourselves into points.

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“You can see from the games that we lost by a narrow margin this year, if we had won four or five of those games we would be right up there in the four.

“It has been a very challenging year, people will probably look at it and say that it hasn’t been a successful year.

“But if you look at what other teams have done I still think it has been a very good year so far.

“Warrington, St Helens and Wigan have all improved from last year and it has been a really tight season.”