FORMER Bulldogs coach Steve Folkes has ignored one of league's most bitter - and deepest - rivalries to apply for a job on the "dark side" … with Parramatta.
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Folkes, one of the Bulldogs' proudest players, was a member of the Canterbury team in the 1980s that turned matches against Parramatta into football gang warfare.
The two teams dominated the old NSWRL competitions and little love was lost when they battered one another.
Folkes has applied for the Eels coaching job, although the club must act quickly if it wants to sign him.
Daniel Anderson is hot favourite for the position after Michael Hagan unexpectedly stepped down during the week.
Sports bookmaker Sportingbet Australia framed a market on the applicants, but closed it after a flood of money came for Anderson at $1.22.
However, Anderson's favouritism did not dissuade Folkes from applying for the position, even though he is close to accepting a job offer from another sport overseas.
"If you're a career coach, you coach wherever the job is," Folkes said. "[Parramatta] have got a pretty talented roster and they're a well-run club. It would certainly be a pretty good gig for whoever gets it."
Folkes's proud association with the Bulldogs finished on a sour note, the club picking up the wooden spoon in a tumultuous season which included the mid-season departure of Sonny Bill Williams to France.
However, Folkes is still hopeful of re-igniting his NRL coaching career.
"You do what you know best, I suppose," he said.
"Last year was a pretty sad year for everyone at the Bulldogs. I guess my reputation is tarnished a bit by that.
"But over 11 years I've been fairly successful, we've only missed the semis a few times.
"I've had a fair bit of success, but unfortunately the last year I was coaching there was the year we finished with the wooden spoon. That's the way it is, that's sport."
Other candidates include New Zealand coach Stephen Kearney, Eels assistant David Fairleigh, Cronulla deputy Shane Flanagan, Bulldogs assistant Jim Dymock and Eels lower-grade coach Matt Cameron.
Eels boss Denis Fitzgerald said the club would takes its time in choosing Hagan's replacement, a process which could scupper Folkes's chances.
"It would have to come off fairly shortly, as I am on my way overseas in the next week or two," Folkes said.
Anderson appears the man most likely to replace Hagan.
He had a successful coaching stint in the lower grades at the Eels before moving on to the Warriors and then English Super League club St Helens.
After eight years abroad, he returns to Sydney on November 5 as the leading candidate for the plum role.
