Super League club were interested in completing star signing

We have some top centres at the likes of Leeds Rhinos, Wigan Warriors, Warrington Wolves, Hull FC and St Helens all of whom will be gunning for England honours this year and next.

Harry Newman is perhaps the league’s best centre when fit but Mark Percival at St Helens has been the best centre over the last decade.

Liam Sutcliffe is an underappreciated star at Hull FC and the same could be said of Jake Wardle at Wigan as well as his teammate Toby King.

The situation around King has been strange in recent times. King signed a long term deal with the Warrington Wolves in 2021 but in 2022 he was involved in a swap deal with Wardle joining Huddersfield Giants on loan before joining Wigan on loan in 2023.

However, he is expected to return to Warrington in 2024 as Adam Keighran joins Wigan.

The situation around the England and Ireland international is therefore “bizarre” in the eyes of Tomkins who revealed Catalans Dragons previously tried to sign the star centre: “It is a bit bizarre. I didn’t realise he was still contracted to Warrington this year to be honest. I thought he was a Wigan player and then there were rumours of where is he going to go next.

“He is a quality player, we spoke to him about coming to Catalans a few years ago.

“He has quality but he probably needs to find a club and stick with it.”

Meanwhile, Phil Clarke was sympathetic towards Warrington saying his performances dropped after he signed his new deal in 2021:

“In defence of Warrington, he signed a contract with them for four years and then his performances went down.

“He had been playing brilliantly, signed the contract and they went down hill.

“I understand why he went out on loan but he scored a try against Warrington effectively helping knock Warrington out of the Challenge Cup.

“His performances for Wigan have been strong.”

King is gearing up for a Challenge Cup semi-final against brother George King and Hull KR at Leeds’ Headingley next week whilst his parent club have a week off having been beaten by Wigan in the quarter-finals.