Ex-Wigan Warriors man and Leeds Rhinos target makes Sydney Roosters debut in stunning win against former club

Oliver Gildart is a Super League Champion, but he made his name on the international stage in 2018 when his superb solo try against New Zealand gave England a famous win over the Kiwis.

He grew from strength to strength after that amazing try and was unsurprisingly poached by an NRL club after last year following Wigan’s star halfback Jackson Hastings to Wests Tigers for 2022.

However, as Hastings shone with the Tigers, Gildart struggled to keep his place in the side. This prompted him to join his former England boss Wayne Bennett at the Dolphins for 2023, but needing game time to give himself a chance of making his former Wigan boss Shaun Wane’s England squad for the World Cup, Gildart began to explore short term options with the Dolphins not joining the NRL until next year.

This led to a surprise link with Leeds Rhinos with reports tipping him to move to Headingley short term as Liam Sutcliffe took up an opportunity at Hull FC. As it happens, Sutcliffe will remain a Leeds player until the end of the year before joining Hull next year whilst Leeds look to the likes of Ricky Leutele and Nene MacDonald as centre options moving forward.

But as this move fell through, Gildart had to look elsewhere for game time and eventually joined Wests’ NRL rivals Sydney Roosters for the rest of the year.

After scoring five tries for the Roosters’ feeder team last week, Gildart was given his debut today surprisingly against his former club Wests who were without the aforementioned Hastings of course through injury.

It was the perfect game for Gildart to debut in as his new club battered his former club 72-6 with Nat Butcher scoring four tries.

Gildart was involved in the scoring spree himself setting up Bill Tupou’s second as Sydney made it 10 tries for the night.

Whether he’ll keep his place in the side remains to be seen but if he can he’ll give himself a chance at playing in the World Cup especially following Harry Newman’s season ending injury.