Bradford Bulls CEO Jason Hirst has made a bold claim about the club’s next head coach after the exit of Eamon O’Carroll.
The exit of O’Carroll came as somewhat of a shock given that he had helped to build out the Bulls squad for the 2025 season with several high-profile signings noting his and the club’s ambition when signing.
However, in the days after the club’s brutal 21-20 defeat to Toulouse Olympique which saw them miss out on a place in the Championship Grand Final, O’Carroll confirmed his exit with a Super League role lined up.
Now, Hirst has told local paper The Telegraph and Argus that it was not the first Super League approach but one that paved the way for a new ‘folklore’ hero to arrive at Odsal.
That’s because Hirst has claimed that the next head coach he hires will lead Bradford Bulls back into Super League and write themselves into the history of the club.
Next Bulls coach to go down in ‘folklore’
Of course, promotion to Super League these days is down to a club’s IMG score and Bradford Bulls fare worse than some had expected and they had likely hoped.
From the provisional grades in 2023, the Bulls slipped from 14th to 16th, despite gaining a marginal points increase of 0.13 points, however, they’re still almost two points shy of those at the lower end of Super League and almost three shy of Grade A status.
Despite that, Hirst believes his next hire will be his most important as he argued: “Whoever gets it (the vacant head coach role) will go down in Bulls folklore, in my opinion, as the man who led Bulls back to Super League.”
He confirmed that had been the journey and stated goal with O’Carroll but that it would continue beyond his departure with the club still boasting the same ambition of returning to the Super League.
O’Carroll had guided Bradford Bulls to a third-place Championship finish and the pressure will now be on for the next man in the hot seat.
Who will Bradford Bulls hire?
During the appointment process, Hirst confirmed that the club may not even advertise the role after receiving significant interest, more so than when they did advertise in both 2022 and 2023.
“A lot of quality coaches have put their name forward, and once I’d left that meeting where Eamon told the players he was departing and we’d announced his exit publicly, within half-an-hour of me getting home, I had people from overseas ringing me about the Bulls coaching job.
“It’s not from all over the world, but coaches from Australia and France have reached out to me registering their interest in this job.
“That speaks volumes of where this club has come in the last two years and it shows that the Bradford Bulls name is still a draw to people.
More interesting was the fact that Hirst confirmed that “many of them” are currently in an existing role meaning Bradford Bulls could be set to launch a coup from a rival club in their bid to replace O’Carroll for what he claimed was an “attractive” role.