Zak Hardaker says he “kicked up a bit of fuss” to secure Wigan Warriors exit

Last year after three and a bit very impressive years at Wigan Warriors Zak Hardaker shocked the league when he returned to former club Leeds Rhinos six years after leaving.

Many reasons were floated around at the time to explain the sudden departure but the main one was a desire to come back to West Yorkshire which is why he ended up at Leeds.

So, many people were surprised when he joined Leigh Leopards ahead of the new season.

However, according to Hardaker on the Fully Game YouTube channel, there was a lot more to his Wigan exit than meets the eye.

Though he admitted that he was initially happy to keep playing at the club:

“Me and my partner at the time had just had a little boy and my rent was up at the end of the year, so I was going to have to rent for the following year but I was going to buy because I like Wigan.

“I like Wigan, the club is really good to me, it’s a good set of lads, I think we might win something in the next couple of years and I can see myself signing here till I was about 35 or 36.

“There was a contract on the table for me, another four year deal at 29 which you’d snap their hand off for.”

But then came the need to come home:

“But moving back for Christmas she’d got comfortable being around family and friends, which is totally understandable, and she didn’t want to move back.

“I moved back on my own and rented an apartment over there and the distance just started going for me and her and we ended up splitting up, then I ended up staying there and not going home at all so it was a bit of a calamity really.”

Add to that he wanted to play fullback or centre but ended up on the wing and Hardaker wanted to leave:

“On the back of that Adrian Lam, who is the coach at Leigh now, kept putting me on the wing. I don’t mind the wing but we had wingers. I was getting kind of p***ed off, my family is back home and I’m living to play full-back or centre and you’re not even picking me.

“I was getting a bit angry and it went on for about three or four weeks and I just lost my head a little bit and said I wanted to go because you’re not playing me where I want to play, I’m not happy away from rugby and the only thing that keeps me sane is rugby so if I’m not playing where I want to play then I don’t want to be here.”

He then said he kicked up a bit of fuss to secure his move to Leeds:

“I kicked up a bit of a fuss to leave to go live with my family and then signed at Leeds and then ended up signing at Leigh, which is very weird.”