Leigh Leopards quartet make Salford loan moves ahead of Championship start
Will Brough in action for Leigh Leopards during a pre-season friendly in 2025
Leigh Leopards have come to the aid of Salford RLFC, loaning four players to the new phoenix club for their Championship opener against Oldham on Friday night.
Will Brough, Ryan Brown, Oliver Polec and Nathan Wilde all look set to don a shirt for Salford as they host the Roughyeds at the CorpArq Stadium.
Brough arrived at Leigh ahead of the 2025 campaign and suffered a shoulder injury during a pre-season friendly which saw him require surgery.
Sidelined for most of the campaign, he eventually returned towards the back end of the year, managing to make a handful of loan appearances for Midlands Hurricanes in League 1.
Brown also awaits his Leigh debut having joined from rivals Wigan Warriors ahead of 2025, though spent much of last season on loan in the Championship with Barrow Raiders.
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Leigh Leopards quartet make Salford loan moves ahead of Championship start
Polec has just arrived at Leigh from St Helens, whose reserves he played for last term.
If he does feature for Mike Grady’s Salford side on Friday night in their Championship opener, it will mark his first-ever senior appearance in the game.
Wilde is the eldest of the four players joining Salford on loan at 26, with a total of 84 senior appearances under his belt.
13 of those have come in a Leigh shirt, including two Super League games last term: with one of those coming against the now-defunct Salford Red Devils.
Adrian Lam’s Leopards are not in pre-season action until January 30 when they travel to fellow Super League side Warrington Wolves for a friendly.
Whether any, or all, of the four players will stay with Salford beyond this week remains to be seen.
Newly-appointed Salford CEO Ryan Brierley, a former Leigh stalwart, admitted during a fans’ forum at the CorpArq Stadium on Monday night that they would lean on loans from Super League clubs throughout 2026 to help bolster what is a very young squad.
And Leigh have been the first club to answer that call.
