Tom Holmes: Bradford Bulls full-back targets playing return after rare illness

Bradford Bulls full-back Tom Holmes says he is looking to make a “special” return to playing this season after having a rare form of skin lymphoma.

Doctors believe the 28-year-old has had subcutaneous panniculitis-like T-cell lymphoma,, external known as SPTCL.

“I’m feeling all right. Over the last three or four weeks I’ve started feeling better in myself and training a little bit,” he told BBC Radio Leeds.

“I’d love to play [this year] and I’ve got a timeframe in mind.”

He added: “One of the recent scans has shown that the activity in my body is shrinking on its own. I’ve not had any treatment at all. For now it’s being closely monitored.

“I’ve told some people my timeframe and they’ve said, ‘you’re crazy’ but once I feel OK and ready, I want to be back playing. I want to do something special this year.”

Holmes said in January that he had gone for tests, having noticed a “rapid decline” in his health at the end of the 2023 Championship season.

The former Castleford and Huddersfield player said the rarity of his condition had made it tough for doctors to diagnose.

“It’s hard to put into words. It’s been emotional and stressful. I’ve got my partner at home and two kids and it shocked us as a family. It’s been really difficult,” he said.

“The doctor who saw me at the time said he’d seen it once before. The type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma that it was happens to less than 1% of people who have lymphoma, so that was why it took so long – because I was back and forth and having different biopsies and scans.

“They still can’t say if it is cancer or not, which is a little bit frustrating, but that’s because of the rarity of it. It’s something that a lot of the doctors have not seen before.”