T’Other Side: Leigh Centurions

T’Other Side: Leigh Centurions

LAST TIME OUT

Head Coach (caretaker): Keiron Purtill

Kieron Purtill has stepped up to the position of caretaker head coach following Neil Jukes’ resignation on Monday. Keiron has never held a head coach permanent position having been generally in the role of assistant coach. He will be assisted at Leigh by Paul Anderson, their other assistant coach. Back in June 2008 he was assistant coach at Huddersfield Giants and stepped up to the position of joint caretaker coach for the rest of the season alongside Paul Anderson. But it was a different Paul Anderson to the one he is working with at Leigh. The one at Huddersfield was the former Bradford Prop (known as ‘Baloo’) and the other was a Leigh player. Incidentally, the person who left Huddersfield in 2008 leading to Keiron becoming acting head coach was Jon Sharp!

As a player Keiron was a halfback or centre and spent his entire playing career with Leigh from 1998 to 2002.

Captain: Harrison Hansen

Harrison Hansen succeeds Micky Higham as Leigh Centurions captain following Higham’s retirement at the end of last season. He had previously captained Salford in 2015. He was born in Auckland but spent much of his childhood in England when his father (Shane) was playing for Salford and Swinton. Harrison began his professional career at Wigan and remained there until he moved to Salford in 2014 and then on to Leigh in 2016. He has played internationally for both Samoa and New Zealand and represented the ‘Exiles’ against England in 2014. He has played most of his career at loose forward or second row.

New Signings

It would be easier to highlight the players in the squad who are not new signings. We’ve never seen such a change over in playing squad. Of the 27 in the current Leigh squad, just 8 remain from last season, 2 are on loan from Saint Helens, 1 on loan from Huddersfield and 19 are new signings!

We don’t know what the current regulations are about overseas players but Leigh have signed six players from NRL clubs. They are Kurt Baptiste (H/LF) from Canberra Raiders, Drew Hutchison (HB) from Saint George Illawarra Dragons, Kyle Lovett (2R/C/H) from Wests Tigers, Peter Mata’utia (FB) from Newcastle Knights, Bodene Thompson (2R/C/LF) from New Zealand Warriors and Paterika Vaivai (P) from Gold Coast Titans. Also arriving from Australia is Jack Blagborough (P) but he is English and played previously for Huddersfield, Sheffield, York and Oldham before spending last year at Mackay Cutters in Queensland. Jordan Dezaria (LF) has been signed from Catalans Dragons and they have recruited Craig Hall (FB/C/SO) from Toronto Wolfpack. Larne Patrick (LF/2R) and Kevin Larroyer (2R/LF) have been recruited from Castleford Tigers. Larroyer is a French international, as is Ilias Bergal (W/C) who was at Swinton last year. Nick Gregson (SH) has made the short trip to Leigh from Wigan and Jack Owens (FB/HB) has joined from Sheffield Eagles, having previously played for Widnes and Saint Helens. Last, but certainly not least is Jordan Thompson (F/C) who has come from Hull FC where he has played for the last 4 years after starting with a five year spell at Castleford.

Stand-out players

Having listed all those new recruits we thought we would select two of our stand-out players from those who Leigh have retained from their year in Super League.

Jamie Acton is a rumbustious prop forward who is a bit prone to disciplinary problems (Did he learn that from Gareth Hock?!). He began his career at Wigan but never played in the first team there. He had loan spells with Oldham and South Wales in 2012. He joined Workington in 2013 before coming to Leigh in 2014.

Craig Hall has a great deal of Super League experience having played for Hull FC (2007-200), Hull Kingston Rovers (2011-2014) and for Wakefield Trinity (2015-2016). He also had a loan spell at Widnes in 2009. Last year he scored 25 tries and 171 goals for Toronto amassing a mammoth 442 points!

Following the retirement of Micky Higham, Liam Hood has an opportunity to cement a position as first choice hooker. He has played 8 times for Scotland but had difficulty establishing himself in club sides before his move to Leigh. After starting at Leeds in 2014 he has played for Dewsbury, Hunslet, Salford and Swinton.

Dual Registration and Loan Players

As far as we know Leigh Centurions have not entered into a dual-registration agreement this year, but their squad includes three players who are on season long loans. Ricky Bailey is a 20 year old fullback from Saint Helens. Also 20 years old and from Saint Helens is loose forward Jonah Cunningham who is the son of the Leigh Head of Rugby and Saint Helens legend, Keiron Cunningham. On loan from Huddersfield Giants is prop forward Nathan Mason.

The Fev connection

There are no players in the Leigh Centurions squad who have ever played for Fev but the Fev squad includes three former Leigh players, namely Gareth Hock, Richard Moore and Martyn Ridyard. This is our 5th match of the season and Richard Moore has previously played for three of our opposition teams! There is, of course a further connection because John Duffy played for Leigh between 2001 and 2005 and then returned there in 2010 for the last three years of his playing career. Jay Duffy, Fev’s assistant coach and John’s brother, made his professional début with Leigh in 2005.

Name Change

You might be unfamiliar with the name of Matty Dawson-Jones, the Leigh winger but he was previously known as Matty Dawson and changed his name during the off season.