James Graham’s ‘turned my head’ admission after St Helens coaching offer

James Graham has admitted he very nearly took up the offer to become a member of the St Helens coaching team under Kristian Woolf.

Graham spent the first eight years of his career with St Helens before making the move to the NRL in order to link up with Canterbury Bulldogs and latterly St George Illawarra Dragons. However, he returned to Merseyside to bring the curtain down on what was a remarkable career in the game back in 2020.

His return came during Covid and that prevented him from seeing out the remainder of his career in front of the Saints faithful. However, he did mange to retire on the back of a Grand Final win as Woolf’s side claimed the crown in the most dramatic way possible as Jack Welsby touched down late.

Graham returned Down Under in the aftermath of that contest at the MKM Stadium and is now working in the media. However, he has now revealed that he was given the chance to stay on at the Totally Wicked Stadium and embark on a coaching career.

“The Bye Round very nearly didn’t happen as well, and the person and the jobs I’m in now didn’t happen for a number of reasons,” Graham said while interviewing Woolf on The Bye Round podcast. “I was motivated to be a coach and always thought I wanted to be a coach, and you did turn my head.”

“But unfortunately my family weren’t so enthusiastic. You grabbed me after training at Ruskin and said you’d heard I wanted to be a coach. I said yeah, and you said ‘what do you think about staying on next year as the assistant?’

“I went home and talked to the family. I did that and it was shut down. I’d made a promise we were going to go for six months and come back, and unfortunately that didn’t happen. But it was an amazing period.”