Championship club appoint interim head coach as ex-Hull FC man handed reins

Championship club Whitehaven have handed James Newton their head coach reins on an interim basis following Anthony Murray’s decision to walk away.

Murray officially stepped down over the weekend, with a statement landing on social media just hours after his side beat Rochdale Hornets 20-0 to secure their first win of the Championship season. Travel and the increasing demands of the job were cited by Murray and since leaving the position, which he had held since October 2024, Whitehaven have put out a job advert, which according to CEO Lee Butterworth, has been well received.

However, Newton will take the role on for the time being at least, with the club’s former skipper, who was forced to retire from rugby last year due to a serious neck injury, stepping from an assistant role.

Newton made over 213 appearances for Whitehaven and spent time in the youth system at Hull FC earlier his career. However, he’ll be the man in charge this week when Whitehaven host Midlands Hurricanes in the Championship.

“We’ve had a full pre-season with certain systems and the lads are just starting to click with those systems as we’ve seen on Sunday,” Butterworth said in a video posted on the club’s website. “I think it would be daft to change anything, we have a really good assistant coaching team with Gus (Neil Frazer) and Newts.

“Gus hates the limelight so there’s no way he’s going to step up. Newts is more than happy to step up to be the interim head coach. He’s relishing what’s in front of him.

“We have put a job advert out but it’s hard at the best of times to get people up to Cumbria because most of the time, it’s a travel, unless we can find somebody local, but we’ve had about 15 applications.”

On Murray leaving, Butterworth added: “Ultimately, we have to look at what’s best for that person. They’re a human being and if he’s made that decision for his mental and physical health, there’s no decision that we can have.

“You can’t force someone to go through that. He was upset, he was emotional and it wasn’t an easy decision for him. He told me it was one of the best times of his career, taking all those young lads, you’re not going to find many choices who can come in, take the young lads from the amateur teams and get the most out of them.

“He loved it, relished it, but he was doing 900 miles a week, we were training an extra day due to the raise in professional level that we went to.

“He’s been struggling with it for a while and we’ve supported him by putting him in hotels and trying to manage the fatigue but ultimately, we can’t force someone to stay at the club.”

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