FORMER Hull FC, Leeds Rhinos and Castleford Tigers star Luke Gale will be wearing a Keighley Cougars shirt for the 2023 season after making the switch from Super League to the Championship.
For 14 seasons Gale plied his trade in the top flight, beginning his Super League career with Harlequins RL before moving onto the Bradford Bulls.
At Odsal, the halfback spent three seasons before moving to Castleford ahead of the 2015 season where he arguably played the best rugby league of his career.
And it’s the Castleford head coach at the time, Daryl Powell, that Gale hails as the best he has ever worked with.
“Powelly, definitely,” Gale told League Express when asked who had the biggest influence on his career. “He kind of changed how rugby league was played.
“Everyone remembers 2017, but I suppose we started building that in 2015. Powelly assembled a great team and in 2015 and 2016 we fell a little bit short but we signed Zak (Hardaker) in 2017 and we played some footy that still gets talked about now and will still get talked about in years to come.”
“I really got on with Powelly, he evolved me into an England player. I ended up getting 11 caps for England and I thank Powelly.
“I’m still friends with him, I still speak with him and I hope he goes on with his Warrington side and shows people what he is all about.”
Gale believes that Powell going into Warrington with a team where he was unable to stamp his mark immediately was one of the reasons as to why the Wolves finished second bottom in Super League in 2022.
“He inherited a team he might not necessarily have wanted,” Gale continued.
“It was always going to be hard to stamp his own authority on the team, but I back him to show the league what he is all about this year.
“It’s that old adage about Warrington that it’s their year every year. Whether it will be their year or not I think Daryl will be really competitive with the team that he has got this year.”
