Leeds Rhinos legend joins Championship heavyweights with Super League vision laid out

Leeds Rhinos legend Keith Senior has joined the backroom staff of Championship heavyweights Bradford Bulls following his departure from Sheffield Eagles.

Senior left his role as assistant coach at Sheffield following the conclusion of the 2024 Championship campaign after 10 seasons in the job.

He has now joined Brian Noble’s backroom staff at Bradford on a consultancy basis for the 2025 season.

The 48-year-old, who made more than 500 career appearances during his playing days, says he wants to help the Bulls achieve their goal of returning to Super League.

“After leaving Sheffield, I was in a bit of a predicament as I wasn’t really looking to get back into rugby,” said Senior.

“Literally from finishing playing I’ve stayed in the rugby environment so I have never had holidays in the summer, I have always been involved working and training, never had weekends so I thought it might be just a little bit of time for me to reflect and see what the next stage was.

“I had a brief conversation with Nobby (Brian Noble) when I told him I would be leaving Sheffield, didn’t think anything of it but, having seen him take the head coach role, I just asked him out of the blue if there was any opportunities to join him as an assistant and the opportunity arose so I was very excited.

“The club wants to go in the right direction and when you’re a coach you want to be part of that success just like as a player.

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“I know the vision of the club is to get back to Super League and I know personally how important that is for the game of rugby league. To have the Leeds-Bradford derby back would be huge not only for the game but for the game in West Yorkshire.

“The big thing is the vision. They’ve sold the vision to me and when you’re in the Championship it’s a dogfight and nobody knows what the future holds.

“With Nigel Wood, Brian and the rest of the board, their vision is to get Bradford back into Super League and when there’s a job like that available, it seems a bit daft to turn it down, especially when throughout my playing career it was all about success. It was all about being the best, working as a team in the best team environments and if I can bring some of that experience and be part of that then I think I can be a very valuable asset.

“It’s important the players want the success as well and that’s probably the most important element of it. The players have got to want it, it’s alright saying it as a coaching staff and as backroom board members. If it’s not something that the players want to achieve, then it’s a non-starter but you can see success is something that the players are driven towards and want.”

Senior is one of the greatest centres of the Super League era, having been named in the Super League Dream Team five times as well as winning 43 international caps in total for Great Britain and England.

The Huddersfield-born centre won the 1998 Challenge Cup final with Sheffield before going on to become a legend at Leeds, helping the Rhinos win four Super League Grand Finals and two World Club Challenge titles.

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