BATLEY BULLDOGS coach John Kear says returning to the Fox’s Biscuits Stadium for his first club coaching role in more than two years was “the right opportunity at the right time”.
The 70-year-old, whose achievements over the years, topped by Challenge Cup triumphs with the original Sheffield Eagles, then Hull FC, have been well chronicled, is at the helm until the end of the season.
His reappearance in the Batley dug-out he occupied between September 2011 to the end of the 2016 campaign followed the departure of Mark Moxon, his old Bulldogs assistant who took the top job ahead of the 2024 season.
The aim is to provide the “different voice and direction” Moxon said he felt was needed in order to lift the side away from the second-tier trouble zone.
Kear, who left Widnes in June 2023 but remained in charge of Wales, looked on as Jaymes Chapman and Ben Kaye took the reins for a second match when Batley won 24-14 at home to Sheffield last time out.
He has had a blank weekend to work with his inherited squad due to a bye round.
Kear has ten regular-season matches in which to work his magic, starting with Sunday’s trip to Barrow, coached by another seasoned operator in Paul Crarey, and he said: “I’m looking forward to the challenge.
“I’d been out of the club scene for a while and taken the chance to recharge while doing other Rugby League-related work, but coaching is in the blood, and I have missed it.
“(Coach) Paul Cooke invited me into the Featherstone Rovers camp to do a bit of a talk with the players before the 1895 Cup final (in early June).
“I really enjoyed myself and came away thinking it had rekindled a bit of desire and reminded me how much I’d missed coaching, then the opportunity arose at a club I hold in very high esteem.”