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Inside Leigh Leopards’ deal to sign David Armstrong amid ‘out of the blue’ call

Leigh Leopards' David Armstrong

Chris Chester almost couldn’t believes his luck when David Armstrong agreed to join Leigh Leopards last year.

Armstrong shook hands with Leigh back in summer with the full-back, who scored five tries in five NRL appearances for Newcastle Knights last season, penning a three-year deal with the club ahead of the 2025 season.

However, the move almost didn’t happen, with Chester admitting a deal appeared to be dead in the water at one point. The understanding was that despite Leigh’s approach, Armstrong would stay put in New South Wales with the Knights being keen to keep hold of him as a deputy for Kalyn Ponga.

But, that all changed with one surprise phone call, with Leigh jumping at the chance to bring the full-back to Super League and add him to Adrian Lam’s squad.

“I think it’s massive for us,” Chester told Serious About RL. “At one point we had a deal done and then it wasn’t going to happen and we thought David was going to agree at Newcastle again.

“We were a bit down in the dumps and then just out of the blue another phone call came, he rang me and said ‘is that deal still on the table, can we get it done?’. I said, ‘yes, one million per cent’.

“I’d seen David play in the New South Wales Cup and seen him play in the first-team as well and I never thought we’d be able to bring somebody over of that quality. One thing we know is that when we make a break, David Armstrong is going to be right there at the side of whoever makes the break to finish it off. He’s lightning quick and I can’t wait to see it on the field.”

Armstrong linked up with Leigh for the first time for the start of pre-season and he is expected to get his first run out in leopard print next week when the club travel to Warrington Wolves for Toby King’s testimonial.

He is one of 10 new signings at Leigh Sports Village and with Leigh striving to bring the average age of their first-team squad down going into 2025 he more than fits the bill.

“I’m always very confident going into a new season,” Chester added. “We have made significant changes and changes that we planned. As with every other team in Super League, players come and go and I think we’ve done a half decent job in recruiting the quality we’ve recruited.

“Looking at the age of the squad over the last couple of years, the average age of the squad was around 31.5 and we’ve cut that down to about 25.5. That was a bit focus for us in the recruitment to bring some young players in, some hungry players, with a view to them being here for a number of years so we don’t keep having to make wholesale changes.

“I’m happy with recruitment and I think Lammy always does a great job in galvanising the group and bringing them together. Just watching the guys I’m confident that we’re quite a number of steps from where we were this time last year.”

Leigh Leopards get their Super League season underway on February 13 against Wigan Warriors.

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