LONDON BRONCOS have taken on 14 trialists in a bid to put a squad together for the 2025 season.
The Broncos were relegated from Super League at the end of the 2024 season, with a mass exodus of players following.
The likes of Oli and Bill Leyland, Josh Rourke and Lee Kershaw have all left the capital club, with head coach Mike Eccles doing his best to build a squad with less than seven weeks to go until London’s Challenge Cup opener against Goole Vikings.
Now, following trials conducted at the weekend, the Broncos have taken on a total of 14 trialists.
“We’ve extended to six in terms of the original train and trialists and we had an open trial at the weekend which I thought was very successful,” Eccles said.
“We’ve invited eight players from that down. There’s a lot of good talent around, which we know, and we’re after the next Jarred Bassett.
“It was great to see to be honest and it was a very successful evening. We’ve got the 11 that we’ve signed that everyone knows about, the six original train and trialists which are going really well and have bedded in well to the team and then the eight new trialists we’ll take on now with recruitment ongoing for permanent signings.”
Eccles does admit that it is “baby steps” at present for the trialists: “It might not be for this year but it might be and you might get players playing in January against Goole, they might be players that are on our radar.
“Hopefully the ambition is that we get the reserve team back, the academy back, we want the full thing back. These players can play a part in our team in the very near future or it could be players that are more of a development plan for us.
“There’s players already where you think ‘wow, I wish we had them in our programme last year at some point’. It’s baby steps in terms of where we were and where we are now.
“The reality is that we have to put a squad together and what we’ll look like in January will remain to be seen.”
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