Leigh Leopards head coach Adrian Lam has provided an update on the club’s recruitment plans, specifically regarding their open quota spot.
The Leopards are one of the only clubs in Super League to have an open overseas quota spot whilst also having the funds to make moves if they want to.
Other teams with available quota spots include Huddersfield Giants and Salford Red Devils with Giants’ head coach Luke Robinson previously confirming the funds aren’t there, whilst Salford are still entangled in their own financial woes.
As such, Leigh are in a strong position but that doesn’t mean that they’re going to rush to fill that quota spot – the one they freed up when confirming the exit of Fijian forward Ben Nakubuwai in March.
However, Lam has now revealed that despite the Leopards being in “no rush”, it’s unlikely that they’ll wait until the end of the year to make a signing.
Leigh Leopards’ recruitment update as Adrian Lam gives timeline for quota signing
Currently, Leigh’s quota players are Aaron Pene, Alec Tuitavake, Isaac Liu, David Armstrong, Tesi Niu and Edwin Ipape, with both Lachlan Lam and Ethan O’Neill able to be registered as federation-trained on account of them playing in England as youngsters when their fathers both played.
Recent reports have suggested Leigh would use that open quota spot to re-sign forward Tom Amone who is out of favour at Canterbury Bulldogs in the NRL, something which Lam has previously spoken on.
Asked at his weekly presser ahead of Saturday’s game against Castleford Tigers if there were any recruitment updates, the Leopards boss confirmed: “No, nothing yet. Obviously, it’s ongoing all the time. It’s something that we meet every day on and we’re aware of it, but we’re also in no rush to just bring anyone over here.
“We want it to be the right fit, so there’s a little bit of time, patience and a bit of brains around how we’re going to do that.”
Having declared the need to be patient, Lam was asked if there was a possibility that the quota spot would go unfilled for much of the season with a possible play-off push signing made later in the year.
To that, he responded: “I think there’s a few positions there that we feel strongly that we need to strengthen.
“It’s ongoing every day, every week and we probably won’t wait until the end of the year for that to happen. It’ll happen as soon as we can make the right call on that.”
Among the positions that Leigh might want to strengthen would be half-back given the lack of depth behind starters Lachlan Lam and Gaz O’Brien, or potentially at prop with second-rower Jack Hughes having spent a lot of time in the role already this year.
