Zak Hardaker responds brilliantly to drink driving charge

Ahead of the new Super League season, Leigh Leopards star and former Leeds Rhinos, Wigan Warriors and Castleford Tigers hero Zak Hardaker was making headlines for the wrong reasons unfortunately.

On Wednesday, he was found guilty of drink driving. Earlier that day, Leigh had named him in their squad for their opening fixture against Huddersfield Giants.

The club then issued a supportive statement of Hardaker and he was started at centre against the Giants.

Even more impressively, Hardaker was then voted Leigh’s Man of the Match in their defeat to Huddersfield at home.

Leigh come unstuck against Huddersfield

Leigh Leopards started the game and both teams were cautious in the early stages as they adapted to the new rules and tried to avoid penalties. Kai O’Donnell thought he had scored for Leigh, but the on-field referee, Jack Smith, referred the decision to the video referee ‘bunker’ system, which ruled out the try because O’Donnell’s knee touched the dead ball line. Huddersfield then took the lead with Esan Masters scoring after a Leigh defensive error, which was caused by an Oli Russell kick. Russell converted the try to make it 6-0 to Huddersfield.

The game became more intense after Tom Amone’s impressive run from a goal-line drop-out. Around the 20-minute mark, Sam Hewitt tackled Josh Charnley, and the home crowd reacted. The resulting penalty allowed Leigh to score their opening try, with Charnley finishing off a Matt Moylan kick. However, Zak Hardaker missed the conversion.

The next ten minutes were disrupted by penalties, and Jack Smith showed a yellow card to Leigh captain John Asiata for a professional foul. Huddersfield took advantage of the extra player and Adam Milner scored from dummy-half, with Russell converting to make it 12-4.

In the second half, Leigh’s Ricky Leutele was sent to the sin-bin for ten minutes after a high tackle on Huddersfield’s Jake Connor, who failed his head injury assessment (HIA) and will miss the next game. Elliot Wallis then scored a debut try for Huddersfield to extend their lead to 16-4. Leigh’s Tom Briscoe scored a late try, but it was too late to change the outcome of the game, which Huddersfield won 16-8.

Both teams had injury concerns, with Leigh’s Edwin Ipape leaving the field after 15 minutes with a knee injury and Dan Norman failing his HIA.