The not so secret weapon to Josh Charnley’s ‘outstanding’ start to 2023 despite England omission

Leigh winger Josh Charnley is sitting at the top of the try scoring charts in Super League after an exceptional start to the season – and it’s all down to his hard work.

The 31-year-old has played a key role in Leigh’s impressive start to life back in Super League, scoring 12 tries in 10 games.

Charnley is also the top metre maker in the competition, with an average gain of 149 metres per match.

Leigh coach Adrian Lam believes his in-form winger is unfortunate not to be involved in the England squad to face France in the mid-season test this weekend.

“He’s in the top two players for every stat in Super League as a winger so that answers it really,” Lam said when asked about Charnley’s England omission.

“They’ve got a philosophy around that and their beliefs but I think he has been outstanding.”

Josh Charnley enjoys a record-breaking pre-season

The Chorley-born winger surpassed the incredible milestone of scoring 1,000 points in Super League earlier this season.

And Charnley’s super start comes as no surprise to Lam, who revealed he was in and around the top spots for pretty much every fitness drill they did in pre-season training.

Lam added: “He had his shirt off the other day and I was looking at him like ‘wow’. He’s worked that hard to get back to where he was.

“He didn’t play for us towards the end of last year because we already had a team in place and we communicated that with him. I just asked him to give himself the best opportunity through pre-season.

“He was in our top three players in pre-season in every single bit and he went and did his own separate stuff.

“He’s succeeding at the moment because of what he did in pre-season, there’s no secret behind it.

“He’s enjoying being here so he is a popular member. I still think he’s got a couple of levels to go.”

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Watching England from the sidelines

Charnley was left out of Shaun Wane’s 40-man England training squad, which has since been reduced to 19 for the test match against France on Saturday.

It will be played at Charnley’s old stomping ground, Warrington’s Halliwell Jones Stadium.

His omission was a surprise, exacerbated further by several withdrawals at the beginning of the week.

That means uncapped Warrington pair Matty Ashton and Josh Thewlis are likely to start on the wings for England.

Charnley’s club coach Lam said: “I think he should be in that squad. I felt for him and you can’t do much more than what he’s doing.”

Thewlis inherited Charnley’s number two jersey at Warrington and made his representative debut for England Knights in the autumn, scoring a try in the 18-6 win over France B.

Catalans duo Tom Davies and Tom Johnstone had been in Wane’s 40-man squad, but have not been selected – with no confirmation as to whether they had been withdrawn by Dragons coach Steve McNamara, who hinted that they would be pulling players out of the France squad.

Injured winger Tommy Makinson was one of several St Helens withdrawals, and Wigan’s Liam Marshall was also not picked.

SQUAD: Shaun Wane names 19-man England squad for France test