Leigh Leopards spine options analysed following Gareth O’Brien injury blow

Drew Darbyshire 30 Jul 2024 12:04 PM

Zak Hardaker, Matt Moylan, Gareth O'Brien, Ben McNamara Leigh Leopards Alamy — Zak Hardaker, Matt Moylan, Gareth O'Brien and Ben McNamara in action for Leigh Leopards in 2024

Leigh Leopards will be forced to shuffle their spine when they travel to Castleford Tigers on Thursday, with key half-back Gareth O’Brien sidelined.

O’Brien, who has been primarily used as half-back this season but can play full-back, failed a head injury assessment in Leigh‘s 46-4 win over St Helens last Friday, meaning the concussion protocol rules him out of this week’s clash with his former club Castleford and potentially their derby match against Wigan Warriors on Tuesday, August 6.

O’Brien‘s absence comes as a blow to the player and the Leopards, who have won their last three games with pretty much a full strength squad to choose from.

With the aforementioned injury in mind, Leigh coach Adrian Lam will have to shuffle his spine around but he has a couple of options. Here’s the primary ones at the Leigh coach’s disposal ahead of the trip across the Pennines to face the Tigers on Thursday.

Zak Hardaker to come back in

The former Man of Steel winner was a notable absentee from the teamsheet that was named in their win over St Helens last week, with coach Lam opting to go with Umyla Hanley and Ricky Leutele as his centre pairing with Matt Moylan at fullback.

“It was obviously a selection headache during the last two or three weeks and he’s (Hardaker) played a lot of minutes and a lot of time this year,” Lam said of Hardaker’s absence in his post-match press conference. “We made that decision to rest him this week and he missed out but things may change every week on that, we’ll see how it goes.”

With O’Brien unavailable this week, you’d wager that Hardaker would return to the matchday 17, with Moylan moving into the halves alongside Lachlan Lam.

A backline of Darnell McIntosh, Hanley, Leutele and Josh Charnley would be kept in tact, you’d suspect.

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Other halfback options

There are more avenues coach Lam could go down in terms of filling the void left by O’Brien, though. Ben McNamara has not played for Leigh’s first-team since May 10 due to the injury, but he could come back in this week.

The 22-year-old, who arrived at the Leopards from Hull FC in the off-season, played nine games for Lam’s side in the first half of the season before picking up an injury.

Hooking options to remain the same

One of Leigh’s strongest positions at the moment is at hooker, with starting hooker Edwin Ipape and deputy Brad Dwyer doing a stellar job in the dummy half role and, with both fully fit, that is set to continue as we enter the business end of the season.