Tuesday 17 June 2014 12:12, UK
Former Bradford Bulls hooker James Lowes has thrown his hat into the ring for the coaching vacancy at Odsal.
The Bulls are looking for a new coach to try and pull them away from the Super League danger zone after sacking Francis Cummins and his assistant Lee St Hilaire on Monday.
Club captain Matt Diskin has taken over temporarily ahead of the clash with Hull KR on Friday but he is not expected to be a contender for the role on a full-time basis.
Former Bulls coach Brian Noble, out of work since being sacked by Salford in April, has also been linked with the vacancy.
Lowes is on a rolling contract as head coach of rugby union side Leeds Carnegie but would like to be considered as Cummins' replacement despite being passed over for the role as successor to Steve McNamara in 2011.
"I'd like to at least sit down and talk with (owner) Marc Green to hear his plans," Lowes told the Telegraph & Argus. "That would be the first step and it would be nice to meet with the bloke.
"(In 2011) I didn't even get a reply to my application, which was very disappointing and left a sour taste, but it's obviously a job I'd love to do whether it's now or in the future. It's Bradford Bulls - it's my club."
Bulls chief executive Robbie Hunter-Paul says the club plans to take its time finding Cummins' successor despite the immediate need for an improvement in form - they are eight points adrift of safety with 11 games remaining after the appeal against their six-point deduction was thrown out.
"We don't want to make any mistakes," Hunter-Paul said. "If we go in all guns blazing, then we can come unstuck. It's important we get the right person.
"We don't want to play the coaching merry-go-round. We know we haven't got a lot of time but we're not going to rush into it.
"Mathematically we're not out of it yet. Our main objective is to try and do as well as possible and to put as much pressure on those teams sitting above us."
