Hornets wheelchair side ready to embrace Grand Final

This Sunday, Rochdale Hornets' wheelchair side face Castleford Tigers in the Betfred Wheelchair Championship Grand Final.

The fixture will take place at the National Basketball Performance Centre, Belle Vue (2:30pm kick-off). Tickets can be bought here.

Ahead of their season finale, we spoke with head coach Pete Hird to reflect on the season as a whole, and the feeling in camp ahead of Sunday's Grand Final showdown. 

Pete, congratulations on reaching the Grand Final. What does this moment mean for you and the team?

Thank you very much! This means a lot to both the team and myself. 

We’ve all worked incredibly hard over the past 12 months after narrowly missing out on play-offs last season. We re-grouped and reset our focus to at least make the play-offs this season, so to win the Championship West group and get to a Grand Final is a great finish to a very successful season.

You’ve had a strong campaign – what do you think has been the key to your success this year?

I think our key to success this season has been everyone digging in and helping each other. Every player in the squad has done their bit this season and chipped in, be it full-length try-scoring runs, kicking conversions, blocking chairs or last-ditch try-saving tackles or putting players into touch.

Everyone has played their part.

Castleford Tigers await in the final - what are you expecting from them?

We’ve not yet had the chance to play Castleford as we were both in different groups at the Challenge Trophy earlier on this season, but we’ve seen them pick that trophy up and we’ve been watching videos posted on social media to see how we can attack them on Sunday. 

I’m expecting them to come out fast and strong, but we’ve seen how they play and will be ready for it.

How have preparations gone in the build-up to the final?

Preparation has been going well. We’ve done a bit of scouting on Castleford and have managed to rest our injured players who have taken some massive bumps  in the run-up to this final.

All being well, we should have a full-strength squad ready to go on Sunday afternoon.

What message do you have for Hornets fans ahead of Sunday's Grand Final?

If you can get down to Belle Vue on Sunday afternoon, it’s near enough a home fixture and it would be great to see the place full of Hornets supporters who can hopefully watch us create some history for the club.