Knights chief in the running for Rams role

10:25am Tuesday 20th May 2008

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YORK City Knights assistant-boss James Ratcliffe has not ruled himself out of the running for the vacant head coach role at Dewsbury Rams.

However, he did stress he was happy at York and wanted to complete what he and player-coach Paul March had started at Huntington Stadium.

Ratcliffe's name is one of several that have been linked with the Rams hot-seat in the wake of Andy Kelly's departure.

The 38-year-old spent four years at Rams Stadium, where he was the academy head coach and a first-team assistant to Kelly, before joining the Knights in the winter and forming a coaching partnership with former Wakefield scrum-half March.

A former Thornhill ARLC boss, Ratcliffe has always maintained an ambition to be a first-team head coach in the professional arena, but intimated he was unlikely to join the Rams at this time.

He said: "I'm probably one of about 30 people (who have been linked with the vacancy).

"Someone from Dewsbury Rams has spoken to me about the situation. They asked if I would apply. It's fair to say I'm not their first choice. Of course it interests me. It's a club I came to York from. I know the club and the people who work there. But I'm more than happy and settled with York. We've started something and the results have started to come - the hard work has started to come to fruition."

Dewsbury lie bottom of National League One with seven defeats from seven games.

Warren Jowitt became their caretaker coach after Kelly - who is the father of Knights second-row Rob Kelly - left the club by mutual consent, but he will not be applying for the full-time role.

Rams chairman Mark Sawyer said 27 people had registered an interest. The only person he had spoken to about the job was Keighley boss Barry Eaton.

Other names to be linked with the post include ex-Salford coach Karl Harrison and former Hull KR boss Gary Wilkinson, who is understood to be the favourite.

Ratcliffe, who hails from Dewsbury, said: "You can never rule yourself out - I would be going against the things I set out to do. At the end of the day, I've always said my ambition was to be a head coach, and this is a head coach role in a division above the one I'm in now.

"It would be wrong to rule myself out, but I'm more than happy at York. I've started something I'd like to see through."

He added: "It's nice to be linked, but I'm more than happy with the role I'm doing. Because Paul plays, it gives me a lot of input, even if I haven't got the title of head coach. We're both comfortable with that."

March backed Ratcliffe's ambitions as a coach. Said the player-boss: "He's got ambitions and, obviously, when a job like that comes up, he'd be happy to be linked with it."

• Former Knights boss Richard Agar has been put in caretaker charge of Super League club Hull FC after head coach Peter Sharp left the KC Stadium by mutual consent. Agar, who was in charge of York in 2004, had been Sharp's number two.