Leigh Centurions have announced their 19 man squad ahead of Thursday’s Kingstone Press Championship Round 7 game against Swinton Lions at LSV (8pm).

Former Australian international centre Willie Tonga is included in the squad and will earn Heritage Number 1411 if he makes his debut.

Loan players Richard Owen, Lewis Charnock and Richard Whiting are available again after missing the Ladbrokes Challenge Cup tie against Workington Town. Liam Hood is unavailable following the terms of his recent move from Swinton.

Issue no6 of the Centurion matchday magazine will be on sale on Thursday, priced at £2.50, packed with all the usual features and photographs.

The Leigh Centurions squad is:
4 Willie Tonga; 5 Liam Kay; 6 Martyn Ridyard; 8 Fuifui Moimoi; 10 Dayne Weston; 11 Harrison Hansen; 13 Cory Paterson; 14 Micky Higham; 16 Reni Maitua; 19 Lewis Foster; 20 Sam Hopkins; 21 Andrew Dixon; 24 Tom Armstrong; 26 Lee Smith; 27 Richard Whiting; 28 Lewis Charnock; 29 Jake Emmitt; 30 Richard Owen; 31 Ben Reynolds.

Big chance for Richard Owen to make an impact if Willie is in this time.Strong squad.No Hock,Acton,Spencer and Hood claused.

Higson & Pownall missing too.

Is Pownall fit?

He did go off injured on Saturday atomic so he's probably out with that or it could just be squad rotation.

Be good to see Stewart Littler back playing at the LSV all be it for the opposition! Would like to see us really focus on our defence, would expect us to score plenty of points against Swinton but I think the aim should be to try to keep their score down as much as possible. Would be better preparation for tougher games I think than just running trys in. Although who knows what could happen on the day.

Plenty of former Leythers in the squad for Swinton. Be interesting to see the likes of Nash, Nicholson,Thornley, Lloyd and Littler again.

Well I'm pleased with that. Wanted to see us focus on defence today & think we defended very well against a Swinton side who never gave up & were happy to throw the ball about. Very difficult to pick a man of the match as the whole team played together very well. Also pleased to see us get more repeat sets, time was we'd go for broke trying to force a try when we could have got the ball back & had another 6 goes. Thought discipline was good too against a Swinton team trying to get niggley. Do think some refs though are still going off our (undeserved) reputation from last season, a few times now this year I've seen us put in good hard tackles across the chest & be done for high tackle while the opposition time & time again slap our players in the face and get away with it. It all seems to be coming together now, Jukesy is getting the hang of his tactics & game plan, the injured players are coming back & everything is all coming good. Come on Leythers, looking forward to a nice trip to Workington on Monday, love the Easter fixtures.

Swinton decided to 'rough it up' in the 2nd half, constant "head shots", and then we started making mistakes when we had the ball, then for some reason (yet again) we got constantly penalised for 'minor offences' !! But Swinton behaved impeccably, apart from 'neck/head' tackles.....

He's not afraid to 'rotate' his players either, and seems willing to trust them all to do their jobs. Good on him!

Josh Barlow got away with murder last night

Mmmm makes a change seeing this coming from Leigh not about them

The game fell off badly in the second half - didn't help some fans leaving to get a few pre-Easter drinks in.

It was good to see Jake come back on, we could do without another injury.

The only other worry was Smith. He moved out to the wing in the last 10 of the first half with, is it Owen (?) taking on full back duties.

Then Reynolds was moved to that position for most of the second half (bar sin bin) and they seemed to coincide with our lack of attacking flair.

Granted the game was won, but their 2 soft tries, both off kicks to the wings is still an annoyance - as is our awareness when it comes to short kick-offs.

Tonga went well, but felt he was trying a bit too hard to get a debut try, as were everyone trying to make it happen, still need to learn a bit of patience.

Armstrong seems a bit back to his old self too, I hope he keeps it up.

Think their full back is still dizzy from Toms run and try

Who died?

Willie Tonga considering he has played just one game of rugby in six months , looked sharp and caused Swinton constant problems all night on the edges.

He can only get better as well.

Bit harsh when you had one of your players head butting in the first half and getting away with it.
Ref also decided the forward pass rule was allowed last night and similarly disallowed at least two Swinton try's from the kick through. All in all a good game enjoyable, our boys competed well after doing a full days work and never gave up, really enjoyed the try you lot scored in the second half when the forward burst through at pace ...that was how forwards should take the ball.
No doubt your team will be up in the mix at season end and good luck to all at Leigh.

Thanks Marshy. I hope things work out for Swinton too. We need more 'Lancashire' teams in this league. It's about time you guys broke the losing habit - feel free to do it to any / all of our rivals.



Good luck with the rest of the season. I hope it comes good, if only for John Duffy - one of the really good blokes in RL.

By the way - how refreshing it was to actually see some visiting fans at LSV. I think you brought more than Oldham, London, Workington and Sheffield have, added together!

Need to cut out the technical penalties, maybe Dukes to speak to the ref controller or bring a ref into training to get this nipped in the bud before it becomes an issue.
Second half we either got penalised or put passes down so improvement needed although having so many changes week in week out won't help so hopefully once we get a settled squad we'll see that ironed out.
That said we played some good stuff in the first 40minutes and can take those positives into a Workington match as they will be busting to rough us up and get one over us after our recent cup win and derby loss to Haven today, be a tough encounter Monday so we need to ensure we play with the ball as much as possible.
The Ridyard /Reynolds partnership showed some good signs last night, Ben has clearly blossomed with game time at Dewsbury and I think we are reaping the benefits of that.

Top of the league though so certainly things are on the up.

We are not going to get assistance from refs.Again,did we learn anything from last season? You plan your game based on the team in front of you this week,in the following week you sort the issues,hopefully not to see the same issue again in the following game.

The ref isn't there when the video is reviewed,so why ask for assistance? Surely they can all see the screen and the petty mistakes made.Why we have to keep making excuses for poor professionalism is beyond me.