{"id":632368,"date":"2026-06-11T03:46:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T03:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/632368\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T03:46:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T03:46:12","slug":"inside-the-deal-as-bradford-bulls-boss-lifts-lid-on-sam-eseh-signing-as-clubs-ambition-highlighted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/632368\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the deal as Bradford Bulls boss lifts lid on Sam Eseh signing as club’s ambition highlighted"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Bradford Bulls boss Kurt Haggerty has confirmed that the last six weeks of his life have been consumed by recruitment talk with the signing of Wigan Warriors\u2019 Sam Eseh for 2027 the first sign of that bearing fruit.<\/p>\n

Eseh is the first signing to be announced by Bradford for 2027<\/a> but he\u2019s likely to be one of several recruits, with Haggerty teasing that there will be a \u2018few more\u2019 players arriving at Odsal for next year.<\/p>\n

Speaking specifically on how Bradford signed Eseh, Haggerty revealed that the 22-year-old effectively ticks all the boxes that the Bulls were looking for in their recruitment.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a big body, he\u2019s athletic, he\u2019s aggressive, and he\u2019s young and he\u2019s English. He\u2019s everything we\u2019ve been looking for so I can\u2019t wait to coach him,\u201d Haggerty said, confirming the club had earmarked the Wigan man a while ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get sent a list through of players off-contract and we\u2019d identified that we needed to strengthen the middle and he was somebody who we went for straight away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having identified Eseh as a candidate, Haggerty<\/a> went on to note just how impressed he was with the Wigan man when speaking to him, speaking to his character before he even addressed any rugby side of things.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cFirst and foremost when I met him, he\u2019s an extremely polite young man. I couldn\u2019t speak highly enough after meeting him and I\u2019m really looking forward to working with him, character first but ultimately as a rugby player.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brad Arthur commits to Leeds Rhinos, Hull KR lose back-to-back and Captain\u2019s Challenge rule debated \u2013 Click here to listen to this week\u2019s episode of the Serious About Rugby League Show<\/a><\/p>\n

Sam Eseh the first piece of Bradford Bulls\u2019 2027 puzzle as Haggerty addresses squad-building<\/p>\n

The Bulls coach also believes that whilst Eseh has been a \u2018soldier\u2019 for Wigan, he can become a star at Bradford thanks to the fact he would likely play a larger role with more significant minutes, and ultimately in the Kurt Haggerty style of play.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s got a point of difference, he can break tackles and he can offload,\u201d Haggerty said when explaining what makes Eseh such a prospect.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it\u2019s not something you might see at Wigan because it\u2019s not their philosophy and style but in his previous clubs at Wakefield and Hull, he has got an offload and it\u2019s something that we\u2019d like to unlock here at the Bulls.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think the one thing we could possibly give him at the moment is a little bit more game time, so we can put him out there a little bit longer and really study his game further, what we think we can help him on, but there\u2019s just a lot to like about Sam.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of coaching in him, there\u2019s a lot of rawness about him, and yeah, there\u2019s a lot of his game that we think we can help him with, and hopefully help him take that next step in his career.<\/p>\n

As for the fact he\u2019s penned a three-year deal, the head coach pointed to it as a marker of the club\u2019s ambition and their desire to become an elite club as fast as possible.<\/p>\n

He said: I think it shows the urgency to be successful quickly, even though we know that doesn\u2019t happen overnight, but yet we\u2019re impatient, we want overnight success, and we\u2019ll do whatever we can to get the right people for this club to take the next step towards the top, but try and do it quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whilst Eseh is the first of perhaps several signings, there are also plenty of faces off-contract at Odsal and whilst Haggerty confirmed there could be quite some change before 2027, plenty of the current group will remain.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cWe\u2019ve got probably around maybe 10 to 11 out of contract, so it\u2019s a big bulk of the squad, but I still think we did some pretty good recruitment in getting some boys on two, three-year deals, so again, it\u2019ll look different, but there\u2019ll still be some boys that stay on board as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bradford Bulls boss Kurt Haggerty has confirmed that the last six weeks of his life have been consumed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-632368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}