New West Bowling head coach John Williams will take charge of his first competitive game tomorrow, and it just so happens to be in rugby league’s most famous cup competition.
The Horsfall side travel to Oulton Raiders for a Challenge Cup first round tie, facing an opponent they are extremely familiar with.
Oulton and West Bowling were both in Division One of the National Conference League last season, and while the latter romped to the title, the former missed out on promotion to the top flight by losing the play-off final to Heworth.
The Bradford side hammered their Leeds rivals at Horsfall last April, but the Raiders edged to victory in the reverse fixture, so both will fancy their chances of earning a spot in the second round.
Williams, who has been promoted to the head coach role for 2024, having served as assistant to previous two bosses Ryan Hunkin and Dean Muir, said: “We love being in the Challenge Cup and it’s the same exciting feeling every year.
“We’ve done really well in the competition in the past and reached the third round the last three times we’ve played in it (2019, 2020 and 2023).
“It’d be absolutely brilliant to reach that stage again, because that’s where the elite clubs come in.
“It would be so good to play Bulls home or away, and because I’m from Keighley, it would be amazing to face them too.”
But Williams is not looking too far ahead for now and is fully focused on a familiar opponent this weekend.
He said: “We’ve played Oulton a lot over the last few years, because we were in the same league for four or five seasons.
“I’m conscious that we’ve not won at their place for ages, so it definitely would have been better for us if we’d been drawn to play them at Horsfall.
“They’re a good side Oulton, and we just need to make sure it’s not the same outcome this weekend as it usually is for us at their place.”
Whoever wins the Oulton versus Bowling tie will face an almighty trek to either London-based Hammersmith Hills Hoists or Kent outfit Medway Dragons in the second round.
Discussing that prospect, Williams said: “We’ve not really thought about it much because we’ve still got Oulton to face first.
“It’s certainly a dangling carrot for us or Oulton to get that long trip down south, but Hammersmith aren’t a total unknown for us, as we beat them at home in the 2019 Challenge Cup.
“These cup games are great to have because they’re almost ‘serious friendlies’ if you like.
“We care about beating these sides, but we’re not going to win the cup, so it’s still our pre-season really.
“We returned to training in mid-November and the boys have put in a lot of hard work since.
“They really felt that intensity lift too after the cup draw was made and we had a game to focus on.”
Williams has been hampered going into this year’s Challenge Cup by the loss of key trio Harry Williams (signed for Hunslet), Max Trueman (gone back to live in Australia) and Lewis Taylor (out for several months with a knee injury).
But ending on a positive note, he said: “We can cope without them and we have to move on anyway, because we can’t change those three situations.
“We have lots of good players in our squad still that can do a great job for us this year.”
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