FEATUR-ING INTER-VIEW WITH HEAD COACH PAUL ROW-LEY(PAGE2

2014 IN REVIEW(PAGES 2-3)

NEW KIT OUT NOW AND FUI-FUI MOI MOI SIGNS(PAGE 4)

THE LEIGH CENTURIONS END OF YEAR REVIEW SUPPLEMENT

CENTURIONS CONQUER THE CHAMPIONSHIPJust speaking to Paul Rowley you can see how proud he is of how his team have performed during the 2014 season and you can understand why. !e team only lost 2 games in the entire season, which is a record for any Leigh team and also made them one of the best sporting teams in any sport in 2014.However Rowley says there is even more at stake this season.“!e main aim for the lads is to get in that Super 8, we showed what a quality side we were last season and now we want to be playing against the big teams and on the big stage.” He also said that he was really proud of how Leigh played this season and said that the squad morale was high all season, even a"er the two defeats.“!e boys always had belief in their abilities and themselves that they could win any game in front of them. !ey showed great battling qual-ities to come from behind to beat a very good Halifax team away, and that showed us that we could do something special.”He also commented on how proud he was to go to Headingley against Leeds and push them all the way.“I was disappointed because we lost the game but I was very proud of the lads as we gave it a really good go against the eventual winners. I genuinely believed that we could win that game because of the performances before the game, but it wasn’t to be and we moved on really well.”He also spoke of the disappointment of losing to Doncaster.“I still think we could have avoided defeat, wemade some errors and were punished.”However he was full ofpride that his team wenton to do the league andgrand #nal double.“I had a strong belief in the team that we coulddo well in the league thisyear. I wanted us to win the League Leaders Shield and that is what we did, and from then on I made sure we didn’t get complacent as we wanted to keep the form up going into the play o$s and made sure we won the grand #nal. It was nice to do it at Headingley as well a"er the Leeds game earlier in the year, and it was also nice to perform well on TV as it showed many people just how good we have been this year.”I then asked him what ganes he is looking forward to next year and he instantly replied: “Bradford!”He explained why by saying “!ey were a Super League team last year, and we expect them to be right up at the top at the end of the year, but we will want to show them why we were the dominant team last year. London will also be a challenge because of the same reasons and they both have recruited well.” No matter what happens, Rowley has proved himself to be one of the fastest rising young coaches in the game during his #rst few years in the role, and he will be hoping to take his home town of Leigh all the way to the top.

By Ryan Taylor

If any game summed up the strength and determination of the Leigh Centurions in 2014 then it was the #rst away game of the season against a team expected to be up there with them come September.Leigh were 26-0 down away against Halifax at the Shay, which will have brought back memories of the 60-10 defeat su$ered there the year before but this was a di$erent Leigh to then. !e Centu-rions racked in 36 unanswered points to claim one of the best comebacks recorded in Leigh’s history.!e momentum from that game certainly helped the team as the centurions lost only 2 games all season and won every game at the Leigh Sports Village.One of the highlights of Leigh season was the Challenge cup run which saw the Centu-rions being broadcast on Sky tv against the Leeds Rhinos. In a game that the Centuri-ons were meant to lose heavily the Centurions came with 7 minutes of causing one of the biggest upsets in the history of the Chal-lenge Cup at Heading-ley against the team who would go on to win the competition.Ryan Hall opened the scoring for the Rhinos and most assumed then that it would be a crushing victory for the full time giants of the Super League, however the charac-ter and #ght of the Centurions showed throughout the game and just 6 minutes a"er the Ryan Hall try,

!e Leigh Centurions team and sta$ celebrating winning the KIngstone’s Press Championship League Leaders Shield a"er a home victory over the Featherstone Rovers

Tom Spencer barged through Zak Harda-ker to score a much deserved equaliser for the team and to es-tablish himself on the main stage as one of the best young props outside of the Super League. 4 minutes later Centurions fans witnessed a dream moment as Tom Arm-strong went through unmarked on the le" wing to send the away fans delirious and maybe even dreaming of a visit to Wembley. A questionable try from Leeds, which was eventually given by the video ref and Leeds were back level. In the 2nd half Leigh missed glorious chances and eventually the home side powered through to score 3 unanswered scores and end the dream of the Leigh boys and made them

su$er one of their only defeats of the whole year.A"er the game Jamie Peacock gave the Leigh boys one of the biggest compliments of their year when he said “!ese boys would not out of place in the Super League”!e Centurions a"er that seemed unstop-pable as they tore through all the oppo-sition before them as they broke many clubs records in the process.Ryan Brierley was the star man on many occasions for Leigh as his try scoring exploits have seen him linked to many clubs in the Super League such as Leeds and Salford, who have been long term admirers of the most talented young scrum-halfs in the whole of rugby league, not just the Super

league scoring a mam-moth 43 tries in just 32 appearances which won him the King-stone’s Press young player of the year for the 2014 season.Another name who established himself this season was Mar-tyn Ridyard who had his best career in a Leigh shirt in an incredible e$ort. Ridyard was such a in%uence that the only that he missed in the Championship season was the only time in the league that the Centurions lost away at play-o$ surprises Doncaster who scored two late tries to best Leigh by 24-16 which helped their coach Paul Cooke become the Manager of the Year at the annual awards, which seemed a surprise as most people thought that

Paul Rowley would have been the obvious candidate to win the award.!e Centurions also won the club of the year which cements how far the club has gone since almost going out of business a few years ago.Next year the whole of Rugby League will be changed with the in-troduction of the new structuring system.!e minimum aim for the Centurions will be to secure a place in the Super 8 stage with the main prize being a place in the Super League for the top 3 teams with the 4th an 5th entering the million pound game to secure the last place in the premier competi-tion of rugby league.!e prospects of the Super League will

bring up some inter-esting ties and many local derbies includ-ing current Super League champions St Helens, Warrington Wolves and the big game against Wigan Warriors. !e game between Leigh and Wigan will be con-tested in pre-season and has now been dubbed the “Battle of the Borough” and the prospect of this be-coming a even game in the same league is enough reason for the Centurions to claim a Super League place.!e club has also made some very im-pressive recruitments in the transfer market none more especially than the Paramatta Eels legend Fui Fui Moi Moi. !e Tongan was that impressed with the facilities at

Leigh Sports Village when he trained with Tonga at the Rugby League World Cup, which proved to be one of the main deci-sions that he turned down Super League clubs to sign for Leigh, which is a real state-ment of ambition.Another promising signing for Leigh is the signing of Ben Reynolds from the Castleford Tigers. !e 20 year old, who can play either full-back or half-back won the joint Championship League One young player of the year when he was signed on a dual contract register with the York City Knights, whilst making two Super League appearances with the Castleford Tigers.Another new signing

for Leigh is the prop Richie Beaumont from St Helens. !e big prop was also on a dual contract last sea-son with the Rochdale Hornets and it was the scouting of head of rugby Derek Beau-mont which helped sign Richie a"er a injury ravaged spell at St Helens a"er a successful spell at Hull KR led to a move to the Saints.!ere was a bit of con-troversy surrounding the now abandoned signing of Australian winger Curtis Johnson from the North Syd-ney Bears. !e deal was an-nounced at the same event as Beaumont and Reynolds with the pacy winger signing a 2 year deal at LSV but the RFL rescinded the transfer citing that a

“Discretionary Tier 2 GBE Application” had been turned down af-ter an appeal meeting.!e club has since announced that it will not be pursuing a re-placement signing for Johnson and that they are happy with the squad size that they have.!is is also be the #rst year since they were last in Super League that Leigh will be a full time side and this will surely be a boost to the Super League pro-motion push as it will enable the squad to be fully focused on their rugby and the chal-lenges that lie ahead for this promising and developing side.!e year 2014 has been a year which Leigh fans will look back on fondly many years from now with

a huge smile on their face. !e team dom-inated nearly every game they played in and won every single game at home in the season. !is was the most successful sea-son ever on record in relation to the points scored, and they were very unlucky not to be in the Challenge Cup semi #nal which potentially could have seen “little old” Leigh take a trip down the arches to Wembley Stadium.Who knows what 2015 might hold, but if its good as 2014 then surely Leigh will be joining the big names in Super League and play-ing against some of the best players in the world and who knows maybe cause some upsets.

Leigh Reporter Dec 2014 Leigh Reporter Dec 20142 3

ROWLEY’S VIEW ON THE YEAR 2014 AND WHAT LIES AHEAD

Leigh Centurions head coach Paul Rowley

RYAN BRIERLEY

MARTYN RIDYARD

Leigh Reporter Dec 2014

NEW HOME AND AWAY KIT UNVEILED IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS

THE LEIGH CENTURIONS HOME AND AWAY KIT UNVEILED AT A SUPPORTERS CLUB MEETING, SPONSORED BY KUKRI

“I love to smash.” with those choice of words Fui Fui Moi Moi made a instant connection to the Leigh Centurions fanbase that were eagerly awaiting his arrival at Leigh Sports Village.!e Tongan inter-national, who has spent his entire career playing for the Parramatta Eels in the NRL in Aus-tralia, hsd interest from Super League clubs such as War-rington, Wake#eld and Salford but has decided to join Paul Rowley and Leigh in their case to join Super League’s elite in 2015. He has signed a 1 year contract with the option of a further

play hard, I love to get hit and challenge the other team to see who’s the strongest and most skilful in my position.”He also mentioned the other interest that was available in England and said why he chose Leigh to the club’s in house TV channel, Centurions TV:“!ere was interest, But, in the end, my team advised me that Leigh was my best option and I’m very happy to be going to Leigh. I was there at the World Cup and I trained and played at the Leigh Stadium. I met a few people at Leigh and, obviously, I met the owner who is a really nice guy”!e head coach of

Leigh, Paul Rowley, spoke of his excite-ment about recruit-ing such an exciting name to Leigh. He said ““!e signing of Fui is a strong indication of Leigh Centurions’ ability to attract world-class talent in the face of #erce competition from Super League clubs. Fui is a world-class player who will not only bring pro#le to our club o$ the #eld but a huge presence and class on the #eld.”Moi Moi will join up with the squad a"er Christmas and will be available for the #rst pre season game against big rivals Wigan Warriors.

year to try and prove his worth to the club and to show that he is still the same play-er that became a cult hero in Australia.Moi Moi is approach-ing the twilight years of his career but wants to make an impact

impact and show the English audiences that the hype is justi-#ed and that Leigh is not just a holiday but a serious chance to pove himself against the best players in England and ful#l a dram of playing in

the Super League.Moi Moi himself has spoken about the move to Leigh and what he hopes hap-pens during his time at Leigh.On the move he said “I just want to play footy; train hard and

THE FIRST PICTURE OF FUIFUI MOIMOI IN A LEIGH SHIRT

FUI FUI MOI MOI IN SHOCK MOVE TO THE LEIGH CENTURIONS