London Broncos have taken on 14 trialists as they continue to build their squad for the upcoming Championship season. The Broncos were powerless to prevent a mass exodus of players over the off-season following their relegation from Super League at the end of the 2024 season.
As such, while the club have managed to keep hold of a clutch of first-teamers, Mike Eccles is currently hard at work trying to build a squad that he hopes will be able to compete in the second tier next season. London have taken on six train and trialists since the start of their pre-season in the hope they will impress enough to earn permanent deals, but they’ve also held open trials to monitor and discover talent in and around the capital.
As a result of those open trials, the Broncos have invited eight more players down to train with the club over the winter months. Of course, London don’t have too much longer to wait for their first competitive fixture, either, with the Championship side set to host Goole Vikings in the second round of the Challenge Cup in the final weekend of January, a little over seven weeks away.
Time is of the essence for Eccles and his team then as he strives to put a team together and while recruitment is ongoing, he has given an update on where the club are at.
“We’ve extended to six in terms of the original train and trialists and we had an open trial at the weekend which I thought was very successful,” Eccles said in a video posted by London Broncos’ X account. “We’ve invited eight players from that down. There’s a lot of good talent around, which we know, and we’re after the next Jarred Bassett.
“It was great to see to be honest and it was a very successful evening. We’ve got the 11 that we’ve signed that everyone knows about, the six original train and trialists which are going really well and have bedded in well to the team and then the eight new trialists we’ll take on now with recruitment ongoing for permanent signings.”
On the trialists, Eccles added: “It might not be for this year but it might be and you might get players playing in January against Goole, they might be players that are on our radar.
“Hopefully the ambition is that we get the reserve team back, the academy back, we want the full thing back. These players can play a part in our team in the very near future or it could be players that are more of a development plan for us.
“There’s players already where you think ‘wow, I wish we had them in our programme last year at some point’. It’s baby steps in terms of where we were and where we are now. The reality is that we have to put a squad together and what we’ll look like in January will remain to be seen.”
London get their Championship campaign underway with a trip to Bradford Bulls on February 16.
