By STEPHEN IBBETSON
JOHN BATEMAN admits he is unsure what the future holds beyond the end of his loan spell at Warrington.
The England international signed for the Wolves last month on a short-term deal until the end of the season.
Bateman joined Wests Tigers from Wigan ahead of the 2023 campaign and still has two more years on his contract with the NRL club after this one.
But his return to Super League came amid being dropped by Wests and a reported falling out with their coach, Benji Marshall.
As far as Bateman is concerned, however, Australia will be calling again once this loan spell ends.
“I have a contract there. I have to honour my contract”, he said of his parent club.
“They’ve given me an opportunity to obviously come over here and do what I do and I appreciate it from their end.
“They probably didn’t have much to play for over there so that’s probably why they were more than keen to (let me go).
“I’ll have to see what gets said and what goes from there. I don’t know from their end (what they want), but on my end, I’ve got a house over there and stuff like that so, for me, I/ll be going back at the end of the year.”
Bateman’s spell at Wests is his second in the NRL after two seasons with Canberra, in between a couple of stints with Wigan.
He won two Super League titles in the first, in 2016 and 2018, as well as a Challenge Cup, and wants to taste success with Warrington too.
“It was about coming here and taking this club to a place it’s never been before,” he said.
“That is to win Super League – that is a big part of what I want to do.”
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