T'Other Side: Bradford Bulls

   

Head Coach: Brian Noble

 

We suspect that the appointment of Brian Noble as head coach of Bradford in 2025 took may people by surprise because it was assumed that his work in such a role had finished many years ago.

In all the years that we have been writing little profiles of opposition head coaches, both in fevnut’s blog and earlier in the Rovers match day programme, we don’t think we have ever before, done it for a coach with so many honours to his name. While he was Bradford head coach between 2001 and 2006 they were Grand Final winners in 2001, 2003 and 2005, they won the Challenge Cup in 2003 and won the World Club Challenge in 2002, 2004 and 2006.

His coaching career also included time as head coach at Wigan, Crusaders RL and Salford as well as being the head coach of the Great Britain team from 2004 until 2006. In 2004 he received the International Federation award as the coach of the year.

As a player, he was the Bradford Northern hooker from 1979 until 1993 during which time he played 392 games for them which included two Yorkshire Cup wins and another in the Regal Trophy. He also played for Cronulla Sharks in 1985 and, at the end of his playing career, he spent a season at Wakefield Trinity.

At representative level he played for Yorkshire, Great Britain U24 and Great Britain. In 1984 he captained Great Britain for their tour of Australia and New Zealand.

 

 

Captain: Michael Lawrence 

Michael Lawrence played well over 300 games for Huddersfield Giants, his hometown club, between 2007 and 2022. He was the Giants captain in 2021 and 2022.

In 2023 he signed for Bradford Bulls and was immediately appointed as their captain.

He has also played for the Jamaica national team and for England Knights. For Jamaica he was a starting prop in all their matches in the last World Cup.

  

Loan players and dual registration

Three Bradford players are out on loan. Mason Corbett (hooker) and Emmanuel Waine (second row/centre) are at Hunslet, and Eliot Peposhi (loose forward) is at Batley. Luke Hooley (fullback) is currently at Bradford on loan from Castleford.

Bradford have a dual registration agreement with Newcastle Thunder. Bradford players, Jacob Bateman (second row) and Jamie Gill (prop) played for Newcastle last weekend.

 

 

The Fev connection

 

 

There have been 126 players that we know of who have played for both Fev and Bradford. They include:-

 

Hooker, Bill Bradshaw, who was born in Featherstone, made his first team début for Fev in the Wartime Emergency League in 1943. At the end of the war he joined Bramley for one season, followed by the next season (1947-48) at Bradford Northern. He then spent two seasons at Hull Kingston Rovers before returning to Fev in 1951. In total for Fev he played 70 games (across 8 seasons) but never scored a try which indicates how different hookers were in those days compared to the way they play now.

His final club was Doncaster for the 1957-58 season.

In 1952 he was hooker in all Fev’s Challenge Cup matches which included wins against Rochdale, Batley, Wigan and Leigh and in our first ever appearance in a Challenge Cup final which we, sadly, lost 18-10 to Workington.

 

As a result of Peter Fox coaching both Fev and Bradford and the loyalty so many players felt towards him there are a whole host of quality players who followed Peter from one club to the other. One such was scrumhalf, Deryck Fox. After going on tour to New Zealand with the BARLA Great Britain youth team, Fev signed him from Dewsbury amateur side St. John Fisher. He made his Fev début as a sub at the age of 18 in 1983 and after a second game coming off the bench he became Rovers regular scrumhalf until the end of the 1991-92 season. Peter Fox then fell out with the Fev committee over their refusal to extend the contract of Jeff Grayshon. Peter became head coach at Bradford and Deryck was one of his first signings. After 3 seasons with Northen Deryck returned to Fev for another three years (1995-97).

Apart from his time at Fev and Bradford Deryck also played for Western Suburbs in Australia, Batley and Rochdale. At representative level he played for Great Britain U21, Yorkshire, England and Great Britain.

For Fev he played 353 games, scored 84 tries, kicked 373 goals and 63(!) drop goals for a total of 1,145 points. At Northern he played 107 games scored 17 tries, kicked 330 goals and 16 drop goals for a total of 744 points.

 

Bill Shreeve was a prop forward who started out with Warrington in 1949 but, after only a few games, he moved to Bradford Northern where played until the end of the 1952-53 season. During the 1951-52 season he was part of the Bradford team that won 18 successive matches.

He then signed for Fev where he played for three seasons before retiring. During those three seasons at Rovers, he played 69 games. But that turned out not to be the end of his playing career as he was persuaded out of retirement to play for Keighley in 1957-58.