JY HITCHCOX has opened the door for a possible return to the Bulls in the Championship.

The winger signed off his loan spell from Castleford with a hat-trick in Sunday’s promotion-clinching win over Workington at Odsal.

That took his tally to nine tries in the final five games of the campaign for the Bulls.

John Kear would love to keep him at the club when they make the step up next year.

And Hitchcox has indicated that he would certainly be happy if something could be sorted.

He said: “I’d love to. It’s a great club, a passionate club.

“You could see with the number of paying fans there on Sunday. Season tickets don’t count (in the play-offs) so to have that many for back-to-back weeks is massive.

“That’s what rugby league is all about. There’s still a strong burning desire in the hearts of the players, the fans and clubmen around.

“I touched on it when I first came to the club. Any time I switched on the TV to Super League, I saw the Bradford Bulls.

“It doesn’t really matter where they got themselves but where they are going. To put the pin in the right direction is a good feeling.”

Hitchcox recovered from a mid-season back injury with the Tigers to play a huge part in securing an instant promotion for the Bulls at the end of their first year of third-tier rugby.

He added: “Things obviously need to be done about the bottom half of the league.

“Saying that, you can only play what’s in front of you each week.

“You go into some games and you’re expected to win by 100, then the next week it’s expected to be level.

“You’ve just got to approach the games as they come.

“Some weeks you’ll do something completely different, the next one you know you’ll be in an arm wrestle for 60 minutes.

“But that’s what happens with lower league rugby.

“There are teams vying for a spot and all sorts of things going on. You have to do what you can.”

Hitchcox felt the Bulls stepped up a gear in the play-offs. Having whitewashed Oldham 47-0 in the semi-final, they finished the job with a 27-8 victory over Workington.

“We stuck to our structures and what John was telling us to do,” he said.

“I think we’ve been complacent and ill-disciplined for a lot of games this year.

“But the games we have played well in, you can see there’s a clear potential across the board.

“I’m glad we could put on a performance that was worthy of that.

“It’s tough mentally. It was a big game and you could easily lose your nerve.

“There was a stage of the match when it could have gone the other way and we got back-to-back penalties. But we dug in deep and came away with it.

“It really helped us playing Oldham three weeks ago and then again last week.

“We got a taste of what finals footy is going to be like and knew it wouldn’t be a pushover.

“I think we’ve performed pretty well over the last two or three weeks.”