New boys with one simple objective
THE DEPARTURES
Inevitably there have been big changes in personnel at Leigh Centurions over the close-season, as the club reorganised its playing staff to handle the challenge of its promotion into Super League.
The Centurions have lost ten players, mainly to Championship clubs, although Danny Addy is the only player who has left to join another Super League club, which in his case is the Salford Red Devils.
Veteran halfback Martyn Ridyard has left the Leigh Sports Village to join Swinton Lions, where he will be accompanied by Sam Brooks and Liam Forsyth, while Ridyard’s halfback partner Ben Reynolds has headed across the English Channel to join Toulouse Olympique and halfback Josh Woods, who was on loan at Leigh from Wigan Warriors, has headed to the northeast to join newly promoted Newcastle Thunder in the Championship.
Fullback Gregg McNally has also headed north, but in his case to the other side of the country as he will join Whitehaven’s 2021 Championship campaign.
The one player whose Rugby League future looks uncertain is Adam Higson, who played 13 games for Leigh in their previous Super League season in 2017, before joining Toronto Wolfpack, returning to Leigh to play five games last season, but, at the age of 33, it looks as though Higson may have pulled the plug on his Rugby League career.
THE ARRIVALS
The arrivals lounge is crammed full at the Leigh Sports Village this year, with almost all the newcomers joining the club on one-year contracts, as the Centurions try to ensure that, in the event of relegation, they are not left holding expensive contracts running over into a new season when the club’s income would be dramatically reduced, as happened after their relegation in 2017.