Leigh Leopards provide hint on duo’s future with player appearance, including Super League Grand Final winner

Ben Olawumi
Tom Nisbet, Aaron Smith

Tom Nisbet (left) & Aaron Smith (right) look likely to stick around at Leigh Leopards in 2024 - Alamy

One of Leigh Leopards’ recent social media posts goes a long way to hinting that both Tom Nisbet and Aaron Smith will be staying at the club in 2024.

Both of that pair, as we understand it, were off-contract come the end of the 2023 season, with no official confirmation of either’s future from the club yet.

Leigh in fact haven’t released any ‘departures’ or ‘retention’ list to date, with overseas ace Ava Seumanufagai’s next move back home Down Under as a captain-coach confirmed recently.

With Ben Reynolds also departing for Featherstone Rovers, there are now – again, as far as we know – five men from Adrian Lam’s 2023 squad who remain off-contract, including Nisbet and Smith.

Leigh Leopards provide hint on futures of Tom Nisbet and Aaron Smith with player appearance

Jacob Jones, Ben Nakubuwai and Nathan Wilde are the other three, and we’ll have to wait for official confirmation on the quintet, but it looks like Nisbet and Smith will be sticking around.

2019 Super League Grand Final winner Smith appeared twice in the 2023 season, with one of those coming in Super League and the other in a Challenge Cup win against Championship opposition in York. He also featured as a loanee in League 1 with Rochdale Hornets.

Former St Helens team-mate Nisbet meanwhile also donned a Hornets shirt as a loanee this term, featuring four times for Leigh, with the last of those four in victory at Leeds Rhinos the week before the Challenge Cup final.

Despite that, they could be valuable assets next term with the club starting to run a reserves side, which they weren’t able to do this year for the main reason of a lack of squad depth.

As posted on X by the Leopards over the weekend, the duo were amongst a group to represent the club at the town’s Christmas lights switch on, taking part in a question and answer session at the event.

Club captain John Asiata was also in attendance as well as owner Derek Beaumont, who earlier this week was fined £2,000 by the RFL for his comments after a Round 27 defeat to neighbours Wigan Warriors at the Leigh Sports Village.

The Leopards’ representatives took their Challenge Cup trophy to the lights switch on, and donned their new training range, sponsored by well-known retailer Holland & Barrett and manufactured by Patrick.

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