MOST teenagers running around a rugby league pitch have dreams of playing in Super League. Kurt Haggerty’s dream was to coach in it.
On Saturday evening, that dream will finally become a reality as the 37-year-old leads Bradford Bulls in their top-flight return away to Hull FC (5.30pm).
Growing up around the sport thanks to his father, the former Great Britain international and St Helens great Roy Haggerty, meant rugby league was always likely to play some part in his life.
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But although Kurt and brother Gareth both forged respectable playing careers of their own, including being capped by Ireland, the former always knew his ambitions lay drawing up gameplans rather than executing them.
“I knew at 17 years old I wanted to coach in Super League, bearing in mind I was starting my journey as a professional rugby league player,” Haggerty, who was named as Brian Noble’s successor at Bradford last September, told Rugbyleaguehub.com.
“I had more ambition to coach than be a player, that’s the honest truth about it.”
Haggerty got his first taste of life as a head coach at the relatively tender age of 23, taking charge of renowned St Helens amateurs Pilkington Recs in the National Conference League at a time when the community game was switching from winter to summer.
Those three years at the helm from 2013 to 2016 included a memorable run to the fourth round of the Challenge Cup in his final season in charge, knocking out then-professionals London Skolars with a 13-0 upset win along the way.
More importantly, though, it taught Haggerty about how to coach players who are senior in both age and playing experience to him, as well as how not to let friendship get in the way of tough decisions.
“You learn about dealing with older players and for me, who was a very average player, dealing with players who have had really good careers and earning their respect,” Haggerty said.
“Something I did learn, even in the amateur days, was separating friendship to picking the team – and I was coaching a lot of my friends at the time.
“So, to cut that off and dropping some of my friends who I went for a pint with on a weekend, I was just learning things without really learning.
“There’s a lot of parts on the journey that I look back on and think has stood me in good stead as a professional.”
Haggerty advanced to the professional coaching ranks with Toronto Wolfpack for their inaugural season in 2017, reneging on a two-year contract at Bradford with the blessing of head coach Rohan Smith – another man who realised early on his future was as a coach rather than a player – on the proviso he never pull on his boots for them.
That meant his playing career, which also took in two spells with Leigh plus stops at Blackpool Panthers, Widnes Vikings and Barrow Raiders, was over at the age of 27, but it is a decision the former back row has never regretted.
Working under the likes of now-St Helens boss Paul Rowley, who he assisted at Salford Red Devils from 2022 to last season as well, and four-time Super League grand final-winning head coach Brian McDermott during his time with the Canadian club provided invaluable education for Haggerty.
So too did a three-game spell as interim head coach at Leigh in 2021 following John Duffy’s departure, which helped the 37-year-old perfect his idea of how he wanted his teams to play like.
Despite bringing in 17 new players at Bradford over the off-season following promotion, the process of implementing that has been eased by four of them – Jayden Nikorima, Loghan Lewis, Joe Mellor and Esan Marsters – being fellow ex-Red Devils who can help get their new team-mates up to speed with Haggerty’s strategy.
Now he has the opportunity to showcase that and vowed it will be unlike much the Odsal faithful have seen before as the four-time Super League champions play their first game in the competition since 2014 at the MKM Stadium.
“Probably the simplest way I can put it is we’re quite the opposite of five drives and a kick,” Haggerty, whose side warmed up for the new league campaign with a 26-8 win away to Championship side London Broncos in the Challenge Cup last Sunday, said.
“We’ll move the ball – I don’t mind playing on play one and I don’t mind playing on play five. In between parts of them, if we play I’m pretty cool with it, but there has got to be detail, there has got to be practised skill.
“It’ll never ever be made up, but we’ll move the ball, we’ll play through the sequences, and I like offloads.
“It’ll look a bit different to what it has done for Bradford in the past.”
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