EXCLUSIVE Interview With Craig Lingard (Thursday 24th February 2022)

Hello and welcome back or welcome to my blog. Today, we have my 3rd interview and it is with Batley Bulldogs icon Craig Lingard. We spoke about hsi career both as a player and a coach and looked ahead to Batley's cup tie with the Royal Navy on Sunday 27th February at the Fox's Biscuits Stadium at 1pm. He spent 1998 to 2008 at the West Yorkshire club. In that time he played 205 goals and scored 142 tries, amassing to a huge 568 career points scored. The Wakefield-born Fullback became one of the greatest players to ever play for Batley. He became their top try scorer, taking that title away from Glen Tomlinson. As a tribute to this incredible record, a terrace at the Fox's Biscuits Stadium was consequently renamed the Craig Lingard Terrace. Since his retirement, the 44 year old has been coaching in the lower divisions and became head coach of Batley in 2020. He previously held the head coach role at Bramley Buffaloes and Keighley Cougars before returning to the Bulldogs. Without further ado, lets get into the interview.

You spent 10 years as a player at Batley. What was your proudest moment from those years?

"I think the proudest moment was breaking the try scoring record. By this point I'd been at the club for a number of years so had grown a great affinity towards the club and had got to known the history. Wattie Davies had held the record for nearly a century before Glen Tomlinson broke it a few seasons earlier. The fact that I didn't think I'd get there because I'd nearly had to retire shoulder issues made it even more special for me."

You had two head-coach jobs before Batley. Do you think that has helped you to have a successful tenure at the club so far?

"Definitely helped having the previous head coaching jobs for different reasons. Coaching at amateur level with Bramley meant I had to learn to adapt to players not being at training or available for games at short notice and thinking on my feet. At Keighley, I had the whole takeover and none payment issues to deal with and manage the worries of the players at the same time. You quickly learn that the utopia idea of how you want to coach doesn't happen so you have to adapt. Still learning now!"

What was it like assisting one of the best coaches the sport has ever seen, John Kear?

"John Kear was great to learn from. He was very much detail focused and could spot an area of weakness in a team brilliantly. His man management of players was first class  so you try and learn as much as you can and mould it into how you want to coach. I'll always be grateful to John for inviting me onto the coaching staff."

What was the loss in the play offs like for you last year? I've asked Jodie Broughton about it but it would be interesting to hear your perspective on it.

"Any loss is always hard to take and to be so close to the grand final made it even harder to take. We'd played really well in the first half and we were all confident at half time that if we could keep it tight until the hour mark we'd be in with a shout. Unfortunately 2 errors in the first few minutes led to them scoring 2 tries and the game was pretty much done. Really proud of the players and the season they had though. The budget we work on is in the bottom quarter of the division so to perform like we did speaks volumes for the players."

Finally, you play the Navy on Sunday in the cup. Does the fact its an amateur side change the way you prepare and in general do you prepare differently for cup games?

"Prep has been and will be slightly different due to the weather. We haven't got use of another facility and we haven't been on our own field since the York game and we probably won't be able to get back on it before Thursday this week either. It can be difficult to preview the team due to the lack of footage available so that means you focus on what you do as a team. Having said that though, I've seen both the Navy's last two cup games and they look very energetic, disciplined and work extremely hard so we will have to match them in this department. Skill wise we should be better because of the level that we are playing week in and week out but you've always got to be prepared for these one off games that will be their cup final. I've been on the wrong end of a cup against an amateur team as a player and it's not something I want to experience as a coach."

That is it then for this interview. Thank you to Craig for doing the interview and I wish him, his players and the whole of Batley Bulldogs good luck for their cup game at the weekend and the rest of the season. I am in the process of organising a few other interviews so hopefully they'll be out soon. Thanks again to Craig and thank you for reading, hopefully you'll enjoy the rest of my blog posts and if you haven't already, make sure to read the 3 I have already done (Exclusive interview with Stephen Wild, exclusive interview with Jodie Broughton and players that played for the Army and Navy that went on to play professionally). Enjoy the rest of your day, thanks for reading and I'll see you next time!