Leigh Leopards’ owner Derek Beaumont has offered a cryptic response to complaints about the major issue in rugby league right now.
Beaumont can have no complaints about how his own side are going with Leigh’s win at the weekend ensuring that they head to Magic Weekend in third place in Super League, with just losses to Hull KR, Wakefield Trinity and a draw against Hull FC taking away from a brilliant start to 2025.
The Leopards ended 2024 with an incredible run of form to make the play-offs and that’s carried over with Leigh also making the Challenge Cup semi-finals, set to face Warrington in a fortnight’s time.
All is good for Leigh Leopards but not necessarily in rugby league in terms of how the games are played with yesterday’s clash between Hull FC and Wigan taking over two hours to complete.
The introduction of a Captain’s Challenge can somewhat account for that but the video referee process and the recent heightened number of sin bins have become major talking points in rugby league, whilst also adding to the length of games.
Derek Beaumont calls for rugby league legend to “stay in the fight” amid sport’s issues
Friday night saw an exceptional game between Leeds Rhinos and Hull KR marred by two red cards and those incidents consumed the post-match analysis, as opposed to Leeds’ great performance and Hull KR’s even more impressive comeback.
One man who brought that up was former two-time Man of Steel winner Paul Sculthorpe with the ex-St Helens man taking to social media to claim that we are “killing” rugby league.
He posted: “Remember when we used to talk about players and great games….not officials, rules and crazy send offs…ffs! We killing the sport.”
Interestingly, Leigh owner Derek Beaumont, who is one of the people with plenty of power in the sport, responded about the “fight back” to the current issues in rugby league, before suggesting change could be coming.
Beaumont responded: “There is some fight back to this mate as you’ve seen and the next couple of weeks will see that move further forward! We will get there! Stay in the fight the game needs its big names pal.”
It’s interesting to note Beaumont’s statement ‘We will get there’, with that possibly indicating that change will come. Also interesting is the suggestion that the oncoming weeks will see the ‘fight back’ “move further forward”.
👏👏👏👏 there is some fight back to this mate as you’ve seen and the next couple of weeks will see that move further forward! We will get there! Stay in the fight the game needs its big names pal 💪👍 https://t.co/uTgmSzUxHE
— Derek John Beaumont (@derek_beaumont) April 27, 2025
