Meet the Australian rugby league club fuelling Leigh Leopards’ pursuit of Challenge Cup glory

10,569 miles separate Burrows Park and the Leigh Sports Village: but Australian junior club Clovelly Crocodiles are the driving force behind the Leopards’ pursuit of Challenge Cup glory in 2025 thanks to Adrian Lam.

As 2023 Challenge Cup winners Leigh host Championship outfit Batley Bulldogs in the Fourth Round of the competition on Sunday afternoon, they will have Lachlan Lam, Ethan O’Neill and Ben McNamara in their 13.

Skipper Lam junior and off-season recruit O’Neill are already established names in terms of a Leopards teamsheet and who is on it.

McNamara, who joined Leigh ahead of 2024, isn’t so much – but gets his chance to shine with a first senior appearance of the season and will link up with Lam junior in the halves.

Why have we picked those three out in particular though? Well, if you hadn’t already guessed… the answer is Clovelly Crocodiles.

Meet the Australian rugby league club fuelling Leigh Leopards’ pursuit of Challenge Cup glory

Lam junior, O’Neill and McNamara all spent time donning a Crocs shirt Down Under in the infancy of their careers. The Sydney-based amateur outfit, founded in 1918, ply their trade in the Eastern Suburbs Junior League.

All three of those players have fathers with honours in the game. Lam – as we know – is coached by his dad at Leigh, O’Neill is the son of former Wigan Warriors back Julian, and McNamara is the offspring of current Catalans Dragons head coach Steve.

And what makes the story of the trio playing together under Lam senior at Leigh today a well-rounded one is that the Papua New Guinean coached them at the Crocs all those years ago.

Sharing his pride ahead of Sunday’s tie with Batley, the Leopards boss told LoveRugbyLeague: “All three Clovelly Crocs players are in the side. That’s a pretty exciting and proud moment for me.

“I was head coach of Lachlan and Ethan in their age group, but I also coached Ben McNamara (who is a few years younger) there for a little while.

“I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to coach them then, and that’s not only in terms of being a coach but a mentor and a father figure, too.

“That’s the way I looked at it when I was coaching the juniors, dealing with kids from under-seven to under-17s.

“There’s more to life than just rugby league, so I guess a lot of the coaching that went into them back then was about being a good person outside of rugby.

“We dealt with a lot of things, and I loved that time.”

‘A champion person’ – Leigh Leopards coach Adrian Lam hails off-season recruit Ethan O’Neill

The Crocs’ list of players produced is quite something, including the likes of England international Victor Radley, new Huddersfield Giants signing Taane Milne and Hull KR icon Shaun Kenny-Dowall.

That talent pool only looks to be on the up, too, with a whopping 385 players ranging from under-six to open-age taking to the field in their colours last year.

Off-season recruit O’Neill can be added to that roll of honour now having made his official first-grade bow when he took to the field for Leigh in the Third Round of the Challenge Cup against League 1 outfit Workington Town last month.

The back-rower has settled in remarkably well, catching the eye of many, and boss Lam hailed him as he said: “I’ve known Ethan for a very long time and been there for him through some difficult times.

“We do have a relationship from before (he signed), and through that, we knew what we were going to get from him.

“He’s a champion person off the field, and he certainly lives up to our standards in terms of who we want to be as a club.

I think he’s only going to get better, and he’s ticking all of the right boxes. The fans have taken to him really well.”