A clear frontrunner has emerged to replace Paul Rowley as the next St Helens boss, following his exit from the club last week.
Rowley “stepped down” from his role as head coach the day before the club’s away trip to Wigan Warriors, leaving just 19 games into a three-year contract.
Eamonn O’Carroll will take over duties on an interim basis until the club find a replacement, but the assistant coach already has a deal lined up to move to rugby union at the end of the season, so the club have until then to find their next permanent gaffer.
With just under a week passing since Rowley’s exit, bookmakers and Super League’s main title sponsors, Betfred, have compiled a list of the potential candidates to take on the job, and there is one man who is seemingly a favourite.
After missing out on the St George Illawarra Dragons job in the NRL, Ben Hornby has been named in top spot to replace Rowley, having been priced at 7/4.
There is then a huge jump to the next favourite, Samoa head coach Ben Gardiner, who is priced at 5/1.
Despite saying he was “flattered” at being linked and ruling himself out, Kurt Haggerty is third favourite at 7/1, with London boss Jason Demetriou priced at 9/1.
In total, Betfred have 27 names on their list, and it includes the likes of current Super League coaches, St Helens legends and NRL greats.
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Bookies name frontrunner for St Helens head coach job after Rowley exit
The list and odds can be seen in full below. All odds are correct at the time of writing.
Ben Hornby – 7/4
Ben Gardiner – 5/1
Kurt Haggerty – 7/1
Jason Demetriou – 9/1
Eamonn O’Carroll – 10/1
Lee Briers, Michael Cheika – 12/1
Matt King, Willie Talau – 16/1
Sean Long, Brian McDermott, Ian Talbot, Kevin Walters – 20/1
Ian Watson, Nathan Fien, Ryan Carr – 25/1
Justin Holbrook, Adrian Lam, Blake Green, Danny Buderus, Daryl Powell, Jamie Langley, Michael Maguire – 28/1
Paul Wellens – 33/1
Sam Burgess, Brad Arthur, Craig Fitzgibbon – 40/1
