Another Monday night ‘on the box’ for Leigh as they travel to Batley

Leigh Centurions are once again live in front of the Premier Sports cameras tonight as their promotion quest continues with a trip to face Batley Bulldogs.

Adrian Lam’s men have featured on the channel’s Monday night slot five times already this season – including once in the Challenge Cup – with an 80% success rate.

The only time that they’ve not ended up on the winning side so far in the Championship season came in the opening Premier Sports game of the campaign, losing to nearest promotion rivals Featherstone Rovers.

That defeat still separates the two sides at the top of the table with Fev top, and Leigh playing catch-up.

Victory at Batley tonight is – as ever – a must, though is far from a guarantee with the Yorkshire outfit fifth in the league table with a game in hand on all of those around them.

The Bulldogs have had a two-week hiatus due to not being involved in any cup competition, but won away at Workington Town in their last outing on May 1 and are currently unbeaten in their last five, coming out on top in four of those.

Leigh meanwhile are on a five-game winning run heading into the contest at the Fox’s Biscuit Stadium, conceding only a combined total of 24 points across all of those games.

Last time out, the Centurions beat Sheffield Eagles to qualify for the final of the AB Sundecks 1895 Cup, set to be played at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium against – who else? –  Featherstone.

Turning Back the Clock

With Leigh a full-time outfit and Batley still part-time, memorable matches between these two are hard to come by in recent times and are generally weighted the way you’d expect them to be.

That said, the Bulldogs did get the better of tonight’s opponents in 2016 with a narrow two-point win at home in the opening match of the Championship season. Remarkably, Leigh recovered from that losing start to go on and get promotion up to Super League.

Batley seemingly are always involved in the Centurions’ memorable moments when it comes to promotion seasons, and in 2004 it happened on the final day of the league season.

Needing a win to be crowned champions of what was then known as National League One, the Leythers shot into a 23-6 lead midway through the second half, but Batley mounted a comeback.

Clawing their way back to 23-22, the hosts then dropped a howler straight from Leigh’s kick off with ex-Centurion Sean Richardson spilling the ball on his own line and allowing the visitors to put the winning try on the board.

Tonight’s Squads

The exciting news for Leigh fans is that they’re almost back up to full strength and the club has confirmed that Blake Ferguson may make his debut tonight.

Australian winger Ferguson joined the Centurions at the end of next month though has been working on getting up to full fitness since. Mark Ioane meanwhile could return against Batley with the only notable absentee Chris Green who has been out since that defeat to Featherstone in Round 2.

The man to look out for in the Batley line up tonight will be half-back Tom Gilmore who spent from 2012 to 2019 with Widnes Vikings, making plenty of Super League appearances in the process.

Gilmore has also previously been a part of the England Knights performance squad at international level.

Coverage

Our reporter Ben Olawumi will be in position at the Fox’s Biscuits Stadium for the 7:45PM kick-off to bring you live coverage. You can follow him on Twitter – @OlawumiJourno

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