Claims made that Leigh Leopards “rebrand would stink” without success

For the first time since 1986 Leeds Rhinos, Wigan Warriors, Warrington Wolves and St Helens won’t be at Wembley as Leigh Leopards and Hull KR battle for the Challenge Cup trophy.

The Leopards are battling for their first Challenge Cup since 1971 and Hull KR are chasing a first Challenge Cup since 1980 and a first major final win since 1985.

Both are chasing the end of a fairytale and Leigh’s is particularly unique.

They were in the Championship a year ago and won the 1895 Cup Final last year.

That was as the Leigh Centurions prior to a major rebrand this year as the Leigh Leopards.

Beaumont spoke on The Bench this week and admitted people saying the club are successful because of the rebrand are wrong and that the rebrand would stink without the success:

“Somebody said to me the other day, we’ve done a lot of media obviously leading into this Wembley thing; and somebody said to me the rebrand is the reason the club’s been so successful.

“It’s absolutely not; winning takes care of everything. It’s what’s going on the field that’s making us successful.

“If that wasn’t happening and we was languishing at the bottom like we used to every time we’ve come up before; the rebranding would stink. It’d be all about how bad the rebound is nobody wants to know so I’m smart enough to understand that and I’m also grounded enough to know that today could go nowhere.”

Speaking about expectations of the club, he said:

“It didn’t go well last week at Wigan we could then get beat at Wembley and then we face Catalan who are top of the league and on fire and we could lose that and all of a sudden you know we’re like what’s happened to some other teams that’s been up there.

“All of a sudden we’re sat in sixth place or just don’t sign it in we’ve been to Wembley but won nothing and everybody’s like what was that a lot about you know we think it’d be with I fly in and then it’d be brought back to ground so.”