{"id":518184,"date":"2026-04-07T19:48:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T19:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/518184\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T19:48:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T19:48:11","slug":"st-helens-boss-explains-bill-leyland-signing-as-chances-of-return-assessed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/518184\/","title":{"rendered":"St Helens boss explains Bill Leyland signing as chances of return assessed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

St Helens head coach Paul Rowley has explained the motivation in signing loan hero Bill Leyland<\/a>, whilst assessing the chances of he and Hull KR teammate Jordan Dezaria returning.<\/p>\n

Leyland earned himself the Man of the Match award as well as the adoration of St Helens fans as his 23-minute cameo saw him bag two tries to help defeat Wigan Warriors on Good Friday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Those tries were Leyland\u2019s first in Super League, however, the hooker had crossed the whitewash just a week earlier when playing for Hull KR\u2019s reserves against St Helens\u2019 reserves.<\/p>\n

Days after that try-scoring performance at reserve grade, Leyland and French international Jordan Dezaria were loaned in<\/a> by St Helens but Paul Rowley confirmed to Serious About Rugby League that Leyland was being targeted regardless of that reserve performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was nothing to do with anything he\u2019s done previously,\u201d Rowley responded, adding: \u201cI\u2019ve got an awareness of him. It\u2019s our job to know who players are.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had an area that we needed filling and that became available. There was nothing overly complicated or intense about it. It just happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

St Helens not investigating Leyland loan \u2018just yet\u2019<\/p>\n

The area in question, back-up hooker, is still vacant as Jake Burns is out for at least two more months with an ankle injury but Leyland won\u2019t be playing for St Helens this week as Hull KR won\u2019t want the hooker cup-tied.<\/p>\n

On the prospects of if a return beyond this week could happen, Rowley confirmed: \u201cIt\u2019s not being investigated just yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThat was a short-term fix, so to speak, for an injury crisis that was pretty unprecedented, to be fair.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe kind of ran out of options to fill them gaps and still perform to the standard that we need to so it\u2019s not something I like to overly utilise.\u201d<\/p>\n

One thing he did note was how well both Leyland and Dezaria acquitted themselves, adding that he would not be afraid to pick up the phone to Hull KR again.<\/p>\n

The Saints boss said:\u201dBoth players came in and were fantastic so if that situation presents itself again, then we won\u2019t be afraid to make the same phone call. Depending on their availability, then it will depend on the outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Super League Rivals Round madness, broken video referee system and Challenge Cup predictions \u2013\u00a0Click here to watch the latest episode of the Serious About Rugby League Show<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St Helens head coach Paul Rowley has explained the motivation in signing loan hero Bill Leyland, whilst assessing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-518184","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}