Ex-Sheffield Wednesday man reflects on Rotherham United switch and full-circle Steve Bruce link
Former Sheffield Wednesday man Dominic Iorfa has kept it local with his new move.
A full-circle quirk to Dominic Iorfa’s latest switch is not lost on him.
The former Sheffield Wednesday defender, who played for the club 222 times across nearly eight years and played an important role in the Miracle-working side that won promotion from League One in 2023, was yesterday unveiled as a Rotherham United man after a successful period training with the Millers in recent weeks.
The 31-year-old joins his new club under the management of Alex Bruce, the one-time Owls defender who too earned Wednesday promotion from the third tier back in 2005. A closer irony is that Iorfa was brought to South Yorkshire as the first Wednesday signing of Steve Bruce - Alex’s father - in January of 2019.
Having been released at the end of his S6 contract in May, Iorfa has spent some time deciding his next switch, with a young and settled family life in the region playing a part in his arrival to the New York Stadium on an initial short-term deal.
“It’s been a bit of a strange one because I’ve never been in this position before,” he told BBC Sheffield. “I went into the summer and at first it was OK, I’ve got a young family and it allowed me to spend a lot of time with them to keep me occupied. I sort of switched off and got some rest and much-needed family time.
“It gets to a point where it’s like ‘OK’. You see your ex-teammates all back in training and stuff, you think you need to get something sorted now. I spent time assessing and weighing-up all the options and the longer you leave it, some things disappear and move on.”
Iorfa teams up with former Wednesday coach Steve Agnew, who is working as an assistant to Bruce Jnr. Agnew and Steve Clemence took up the joint role of managing the Owls in the early stages of Bruce Snr’s short Hillsborough stint. As is so often the case in football, that personal relationship went some way to persuading him to give League Two Rotherham a shot.
He continued: “I was doing one to one training with personal trainers, but it’s different to a team environment. I tried to get down here, living not too far away and I’ve worked with Aggers (Agnew) before, so there was that connection and I was able to come in and train with a group. Thankfully they let me come in and the moment I started training they said they were interested and that became an option.
“When I first came I wasn’t even thinking about that. It was about staying fit and training for whenever I decided to sign somewhere, the opportunity came and after a good think about it, here we are today.”
Asked whether he recognises any familiar Bruce mannerisms in the way his new manager goes about things, the former Owl said with a smile: “When I talk to him not so much, but I definitely see it in his training and how he works. There are similarities. The training under his dad was really good, really intense, everybody was really fit and I see a lot of those things in how he works now. It feels kind of strange because I signed under his dad and now I’ve signed under him. I’ve really enjoyed it and he’s a massive reason why I’m here now.”