Leigh Leopards' Zak Hardaker on how tears left him realising what's important
HIS career seems to have been one long list of redemption tales but Zak Hardaker reckons he’s finally seen the light.
The controversial ex-England centre aims to lift the Betfred Challenge Cup for a third time on Saturday. Having twice succeeded with Leeds, he now finds himself shooting for glory with unlikely boys Leigh against Hull KR. It is another twist in a rugby league story that has had so many highs and lows.
Along the way, Hardaker copped a 14-month ban for taking cocaine, was thrown out of a World Cup camp, entered rehab after a drink-driving charge, admitted assault and also got suspended for making homophobic comments. It’s easy to see why, when meeting about joining promoted Leigh for 2023, Leopards head of rugby Chris Chester bluntly told him they could simply not afford any of his mess-ups.
Hardaker - a former Man of Steel who also won three Grand Finals and a World Club Challenge with Rhinos - gave him his word he’d be good as gold. And he’s been true to it. Not only that, the 31-year-old has excelled for a thrilling Leigh side that’s reached Wembley for a first time in more than half a century and enjoyed its best-ever Super League campaign rising up to joint-second.
Hardaker, who reached the Grand Final with Rhinos last year, said: “It’s been weird. I’ve not been in trouble or anything - and it’s been quite easy. I don’t know what I was doing when I was younger. Obviously I wasn’t paying attention as much. Things in my life are a lot different to what I had before, especially with my kids. Things I set out to do now are more for them than me.
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“I play to win. I hate losing. But I want my kids [Abel, 2, and Olive, 1] to experience me winning at Wembley. To get there is great and the first time I’ve cried at a rugby match since being a professional was our semi-final against St Helens. I think it just hit me what we’ve achieved and where we’re going, things outside of rugby that are connected to me and how special it is. To hopefully get the win on Saturday will probably be one of the best wins of my whole career. And pretty emotional.”
Leigh Leopards' Zak Hardaker celebrates semi-final win over St Helens (PA)Having joined after a brief second spell with Leeds, Hardaker could have been forgiven for thinking he’d face an arduous year with Leigh who normally immediately get relegated after promotion.
But his former Wigan boss Adrian Lam has pulled off some masterstrokes to put together a winning formula which has the whole town buzzing. Hardaker, who scored a try when Leeds inflicted a record-breaking 50-0 Cup final rout of KR in 2015, recalled: “The individuals we were signing were good individuals.
“Obviously that doesn’t make a great team. But after about a month of training I did think: we’re not too bad here! And then we set our goals and what we could achieve. Play-offs were what we could realistically try and get. And having spoken to (owner) Derek (Beaumont) and Lammy and the other coaches about what we wanted to achieve, it was about enjoying our rugby, looking after family and friends and making sure outside is really good.
"And then internally just us be happy and playing our part. That’s reflected in this year’s performances. And it’s been brilliant. Being able to speak about being in the big dance on Saturday alone is epic. Hopefully we can finish off the job.”
And although it's Leigh's first Challenge Cup final since 1971, the current squad had plenty of experience in such showpieces with nine players - compared to KR's three - featuring at Wembley before. Asked if that should help them, Hardaker said: "You’d think so. When you get older you get a bit more wiser and you’ve been there before and it’s good to look back on.
"When we played Saints we got all our career appearances up on the board and it was a bit scary. I was nearly 350 which sounds weird and Tommy (Briscoe) was leading with nearly 400. Josh (Charnley) had another 300 and we spoke about how much experience this squad does have and can we use it against Saints?
"Obviously we did get the win and to be in this position to play at Wembley - knowing we have a few players who have been there and won it. There's a few lads from Warrington as well like Jack Hughes who spoke about that didn't work for them when they lost against Catalans [in 2018]. It’s good we can pick brains about it especially for the lads who haven’t been there before."
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