Leigh Leopards shine as Super League’s recruitment maestros yet again

This has been some rise for Leigh Leopards in the last three or four years: and the early signs suggest that the summit has not yet been reached.

Their emergence as one of Super League’s most credible and reputable sides since Adrian Lam arrived at the club has been outstanding – and while there have been many aspects to this rise, one thing always consistently seems to shine: the way they handle their transfer business.

Lam and head of rugby Chris Chester have plucked rough diamonds from the mire ever since they arrived at the Leopards when they were still a Championship club. Some, like Kai O’Donnell and Tom Amone, have returned to the NRL as seriously improved – others, like Edwin Ipape, have decided to make Leigh a home long-term.

Getting your recruitment right year in, year out is a very difficult challenge. There’s a reason not many clubs manage to do it on a consistent basis.

But Leigh are rapidly emerging as the maestros of it on this side of the world. You can run down a list of all the business they’ve done and the majority of it stands out as successful.

Whether it’s players from the other side of the world like the aforementioned Amone, O’Donnell and Lam, or players from England that other clubs may not have considered to be Super League-ready like Umyla Hanley. None of this is by chance: Leigh’s planning is meticulous and detailed.

But this year always felt like it would be the acid test for Leigh’s journey given how numerous stalwarts of their recent success were leaving. Leigh, who have thrived in recruiting players with little to no reputation and turning them into starts, went down a very different pat this year.

David Armstrong was courted by NRL clubs. Tesi Niu has plenty of pedigree. Isaac Liu has almost 300 NRL games under his belt. This year, Leigh went with a different recruitment: and once again, it looks as though they’ve got it right.

All three of those players above have caught the eye in one way or another in the first two rounds. Armstrong, in particular, is going to be a revelation when the pitches firm up and he continues to sync with Lachlan Lam and Gareth O’Brien.

O’Brien is also a good example of how Leigh seem to get much more right than wrong in the transfer market. Rather than panic buy an NRL import to go in at half-back, the Leopards entrusted O’Brien to be the right partner for Lam. So far, he’s kicked the winning drop goal at Wigan and won man of the match on the BBC on Sunday afternoon.

Ethan O’Neill has the early signs of a player that will slot into the sizeable gap vacated by O’Donnell, arguably the jewel in Leigh’s recruitment crowd up until now.

Make no mistake about it either: there are other clubs looking on at Leigh’s recruitment with envy. Every transfer decision and every signing carries with it a risk – they can’t all work, after all.

But as some of Super League’s transfer business begins to be questioned in the coming weeks when the league table settles into a rhythm, it looks increasingly likely that Leigh’s will be heralded as a success once again.

They are, right now at least, the maestros of recruitment.

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