Ben Crooks and Craig Hall have completed their moves to Hull Kingston Rovers as part of a swap deal that will see three Robins players go the other way.
As revealed on TotalRL earlier today, the Leigh duo have become the fifth and sixth players to leave the Centurions, initially on loan moves until the end of the season.
In return, Will Dagger, Josh Johnson and Jordan Walne have all joined the Leythers, who are set to retain the rest of their squad for the rest of the season.
Crooks and Hall have both been regulars for Leigh this season and have Super League pedigrees. The pair have both played for cross-city rivals Hull FC, while Hall is also returning for his second stint at KCOM Craven Park.
Rovers head coach Tim Sheens said: “We are improving the look, size and speed within the side and doing the best we can to make sure that we’ve got depth right the way through the squad.
“It’s been a tough year for us in the outside backs and we’ve lost Minns, Heffernan and Shaw all for the rest of the season. With that in mind, most of our punch has come down the left from Junior Vaivai and Justin Carney when he’s played, so we needed to fix up our right edge and I’m hoping these two coming in helps us to do that.
“They’ve both got good skills, speed and height, so we can kick towards them using the kicking games of Danny McGuire, Todd Carney and Chris Atkin. Both players are goal-kickers as well, Craig more so than Ben, so that gives us extra options in that department if Danny Tickle or Chris Atkin aren’t on for the full 80 minutes for example.
“I’m hoping that we’ll look a lot stronger out wide and we’ll find those combinations maybe starting at the derby tomorrow and then continuing through the Qualifiers.
“As part of the deal, our three lads will be joining Leigh to give them some consistent football for the rest of the year. We’ll be keeping tabs on them each week, watching how they’re getting on and having them touch base with our conditioning and medical teams to keep them around the guys here.”
