WIDNES VIKINGS prop Kyle Amor is set to come up against his club coach John Kear when his testimonial match takes place later this year.
The 35-year-old Ireland international will line up for Cumbria against Kear’s Wales on Saturday, October 21 (3pm).
The game will be at the LEL Arena, Whitehaven, where Amor was born and started a senior career that has also taken in Leeds, Wakefield, St Helens and Warrington, where he had a loan stint last season before signing for Widnes.
Wales will use the fixture as a warm-up for this autumn’s eight-team European Championship.
The tournament will also involve England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, Serbia and Spain. Full details have yet to be announced.
The Cumbria team was revived last year, when Barrow coach Crarey was in charge of the side that beat Jamaica 28-12 at Workington in October.
Whitehaven-born Amor played in the front row and scored the county team’s opening try to help put a damper on Jamaica’s World Cup preparations.
Barrow, Whitehaven and Workington joined forces to relaunch the Cumbria team, who had last played in October 2016, going down 48-16 against Scotland at Barrow.
The side last played at Whitehaven in October 2011, losing 26-12 to England Knights.
International teams have been heading to the far North-West of England since 1908, when Rugby League’s first tourists New Zealand, including star Australian centre Dally Messenger, who had been invited to make the trip, took on Cumberland (Cumbria didn’t exist until 1974), who had been playing in the County Championship since 1898/99.
Amor came through the ranks at community club Hensingham, playing for the British Amateur Rugby League Association representative team before joining Whitehaven in 2009, when he was 21.
He moved into Super League with Leeds the following year and, while at St Helens, played in four victorious Grand Finals (2014, 2019, 2020 and 2021) and also the Challenge Cup Final win of 2021.
Amor has made five appearances for Ireland, three of them at the 2017 World Cup.
