Leigh relish the pressure, says Acton
Leigh star Jamie Acton says the team are aiming to use the pressure of being promotion favourites as motivation this year.
The Centurions were promoted to the Betfred Super League ahead of the 2017 season but failed to avoid relegation, losing to Catalans Dragons in the Million Pound Game.
Neil Jukes’ Leigh side are favourites to win the Championship title and gain promotion to Super League this year but Acton says they will use the pressure as added motivation.
He told loverugbyleague.com: “There is always pressure but I think pressure is good because you can always rise to it.
“It gets the adrenaline going and we want to be successful – we want to win. There is pressure on us but we can only worry about ourselves. Without sounding cliché, if we perform on the field how we have been in training then no doubt we can really do damage in this league and beyond that.
“I relish new challenges and I always feel like I’m at my best when the pressure is on so I can’t wait for that. I feel like having that sort of motivation will be brilliant for me personally so hopefully that will be the case for the team as well so we can give the fans something to clap about this season.
“We aren’t worrying too much about other teams – we are just focusing on what we’re doing and using the pressure as motivation rather than looking at it as a negative thing.”
The 25-year-old is one of eight players to still be at the club who were there in 2017, with 18 new arrivals coming into the club.
He admitted that he thought it could be difficult for the team to gel at first but praised head coach Jukes and head of rugby Keiron Cunningham for making the transition easy.
Acton added: “It’s been a bit different to anything I am used to at Leigh and it was a bit of a shock when we started with so many new players coming in but everyone gelled very quickly and that is probably testament to the way Jukesy (Neil Jukes) and Keiron (Cunningham) have come in.
“They are very prepared and they have created a culture and unity within the group and we have made massive strides forward every week. Pre-season has been really tough this year and it has been really technical. There has been a real scientific approach to the conditioning side of things that I have probably not done since I was at Wigan years ago.
“If you look at the team and the new structures, it is obvious that there has been a lot of care about what players have been brought in and how we have can complement each other and on the field, it is really good. It’s nice to see how that preparation has transferred into training sessions.
“The whole feel of the club at the moment is really good so it’s exciting – we obviously need to put all that we have done in pre-season onto the field but there is a really positive mindset at the moment and I’m very excited about the future.”