{"id":794890,"date":"2026-10-07T14:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T14:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/794890\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T14:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T14:20:10","slug":"released-st-helens-ace-seals-permanent-championship-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/794890\/","title":{"rendered":"Released St Helens ace seals permanent Championship move"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Young forward Leon Cowen has sealed a permanent move to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.loverugbyleague.com\/club\/halifax-panthers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Halifax Panthers<\/a> ahead of 2027 following his departure from St Helens.<\/p>\n<p>Utility Cowen, still only 21, joined Saints back in April 2022 and went on to progress through the youth ranks at the BrewDog Stadium to feature twice at first-team level.<\/p>\n<p>Both of those Super League appearances came off the bench in 2025 campaign, made against Leigh Leopards and Castleford Tigers respectively.<\/p>\n<p>The England Academy international, who captained Saints\u2019 own academy side to Grand Final glory back in 2023, was handed a one-year contract extension ahead of 2026.<\/p>\n<p>But he spent the bulk of last season out on loan at Halifax, and having been released, has now made his move to The Shay permanent.<\/p>\n<p>Released St Helens youngster Leon Cowen seals permanent Halifax move<\/p>\n<p>Set to turn 22 later this month, Cowen \u2013 who has a reserves title to his name as well as the one won at academy level \u2013 has played 33 professional games to date.<\/p>\n<p>19 of those have come between loan and dual-registration stints at Fax, including nine in 2026 which saw him score the first two tries of his professional career.<\/p>\n<p>As the Panthers announced his permanent signing, he said: \u201cI\u2019m really excited about 2027 and feel like we\u2019re really building something with the squad being put together.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can\u2019t wait to put on the blue and white for another year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Aside from those made for Saints and Fax, Cowen\u2019s other 12 senior appearances to date have all been made in a Swinton Lions shirt.<\/p>\n<p>He donned the Lions\u2019 colours once in 2026, lining up for them against Batley Bulldogs back in March<\/p>\n<p>But as previously mentioned, the bulk of his game time in the season just gone came for Fax, with Kyle Eastmond\u2019s side finishing second-bottom on the Championship ladder.<\/p>\n<p>Had it not been for the 12-point deduction received for their financial issues early on in the year, the Panthers could have finished as high as 11th.<\/p>\n<p>WATCH THE NEW LRL PODCAST!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Young forward Leon Cowen has sealed a permanent move to Halifax Panthers ahead of 2027 following his departure&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":794891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-794890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794890","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=794890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}