A former Leigh Leopards star will drop into the New South Wales Cup this weekend as confirmed when the NRL trial teams were announced.
This weekend marks the final round of the NRL pre-season with the competition set to start the week after when four teams get the action underway in Las Vegas.
Similar to how pre-season games work for Super League sides, squads are not always full-strength but most teams have opted to ramp up the workload and haul in the majority of their star players to play this weekend.
That has seen five English players named to starting XIIIs across the competition whilst an ex-Great Britain international and a young English talent feature have been named as reserves for one team.
One selection that will catch the eye of Leigh Leopards fans is that their former star prop Tom Amone is not set to feature for Canterbury Bulldogs this weekend with the ex-Dream Team forward omitted from the squad after featuring last week.
The Bulldogs’ General Manager of Football, Gus Gould, has responded to fan queries on X about why Amone will not feature this weekend.
He explained: “Tom Amone and Daniel Suluka-Fifita will play NSW Cup this weekend to get longer minutes… We want all our forwards getting a good hit-out this final trial weekend…”
Gould’s admission seems to suggest that Amone hasn’t been dropped in the normal sense but instead reallocated to the NSW Cup so that as many forwards as possible can get as many minutes as possible.
Tom Amone and Daniel Suluka-Fifita will play NSW Cup this weekend to get longer minutes … We want all our forwards getting a good hit-out this final trial weekend … https://t.co/zFQbicw1TQ
— Phil Gould (@PhilGould15) February 18, 2025
Ex-Leigh Leopards forward drops out as five English players named to NRL trials
Another former Leigh Leopards man to be dropped is Kai O’Donnell with the second-rower moving from the starters to the reserves for North Queensland Cowboys ahead of their game against the Melbourne Storm.
England international John Bateman seems to have taken his place as one of the five English players set to start. Two of those players start in the game between the Roosters and the Knights with Victor Radley and Kai Pearce-Paul set to go head to head with one another.
Both Jackson Hastings and Will Pryce have been named in the Knights’ reserves meaning they could feature with Hastings having spent some time at loose forward last week and Pryce playing at full-back.
Lewis Dodd will start for the Rabbitohs as he looks to lock down his starting seven shirt ahead of Round One with legendary half Cooper Cronk claiming that the Englishman was “outshone” in his last trial game.
England international Herbie Farnworth will start for the Dolphins as they look to build on their 50-8 win over the Cowboys when they take on Gold Coast Titans on Saturday morning.
