Inside the Deal: How Warrington Wolves secured signing of John Bateman

John Bateman will make his Warrington Wolves debut on Friday night after arriving from NRL side Wests Tigers on a deal until the end of the season.

The 30-year-old landed in England earlier this week and had his first full training session with his new team-mates on Tuesday as the Wire prepare to host Hull KR in a top of the table Super League clash on Friday evening.

It’d be fair to say that it’s a peculiar transfer, with Bateman joining Warrington for the rest of the season but heading back to Wests Tigers at the season’s end, with two years still left to run on his contract with the NRL club for seasons 2025 and 2026.

Love Rugby League went along to Warrington’s training complex earlier this week to get the inside story on how the club managed to secure the immediate services of the Great Britain and England international.

“It was literally within a week,” Bateman said on how the move came about. “I landed yesterday (Monday).

“Last Monday Benji (Marshall, Tigers coach) pulled me in and said there was an opportunity to come over and play and it just went from there and before we know it I’m sat here talking to you (the media). It’s gone pretty fast to be fair.”

Given the quick nature of the negotiation process, the biggest, and most obvious, factor Bateman had to consider ahead of the move was his family, whose partner and young son are still in Australia at the time of writing.

“Obviously the biggest thing I considered was family,” he added. “Obviously my partner is from Australia, she’s over there at the moment with my little fella so that was a big thing.

“Her head fell off, I’ll be honest with you, when it got mentioned. It literally got mentioned on Tuesday and I was booking flights the next day so it was just coming to terms with that and once that got sorted I was ready to go.

“Obviously I didn’t play the week before over there and the boys over there played in New Zealand so I didn’t really see many of them until after.”

Bateman has played with many of the current Warrington players before, whether that was for Wigan Warriors in Super League or England on the international stage.

But the two-time Super League champion admitted he didn’t even have time to talk to any of his new team-mates ahead of getting on the plane.

“Honestly, I didn’t speak to anyone,” Bateman laughed. “Sam Powell was the only one that text me saying ‘have you got something to tell me?’ – it had not been fully signed so I replied saying ‘what are you on about?’. That was literally the only one but as soon as it got announced or leaked, then the boys text me saying ‘congratulations, we’re looking forward to having you’.”

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Bateman will have plenty of his friends in attendance at the Halliwell Jones Stadium for his debut in primrose and blue on Friday night but, given how the transfer came out of the blue, his family are in Spain on a pre-booked holiday!

“I didn’t really (speak to my family about it), that’s how fast it happened,” Bateman smiled. “I actually rang my mum the other day and said ‘what are you doing next Friday?’ so she said ‘why?’ and I said ‘hopefully I’ll be making my debut for Warrington’ and she came back with ‘well, we go on holiday on Thursday!’.

“I’ve got quite a few mates over here so a lot of them have been in touch with me, so hopefully I’ll get them along to the game.

“Even my brother, he’s a big supporter of me as well, my mum has managed to get back and forth to Sydney with my daughter but I’ve not seen my brother, niece and nephews for about nine months so it’ll be good to see them as well.”

Third time lucky for John Bateman and Warrington Wolves

It’s a case of being ‘third time lucky’ for Bateman and Warrington, with the Bradfordian having previously held talks with the Wire over a move to Cheshire twice before.

“Funny you should say that, I had a meeting yesterday with a couple of the board members and Karl Fitzpatrick (Wolves CEO),” Bateman explained. “I had a meeting with Simon Moran (Warrington owner) when I was 17.

“It was a long time ago now and it’s weird how things work themselves out and come back around but I had a meeting (with the club).

“I think the defining thing was my little girl was being born at the time and obviously Bradford are my hometown club, one thing I always wanted to do was play for them so I think that was a big part of it. I spoke (with Warrington) quite a lot, an opportunity came as well when I was re-signing for Wigan so there’s been a couple of times and I think the saying is ‘third time lucky’ so it’s good to be here.”

And for Bateman, he insists he is coming over to Warrington for one reason only: to make history with Sam Burgess’ side at Old Trafford.

“For myself, it was just more about the opportunity that presented itself,” he said. “I know quite a lot of the boys here, I know Sam, and for me it was just about coming over, going out there and putting my best foot forward and taking this club to a place that it’s never been before and that’s winning Super League, so that’s a big part of what I want to do.”

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