THREE players have been banned following Leigh Centurions' bruising promotion win at Carlisle Raiders last Sunday.

Carlisle skipper Gary Charlton has been handed a four-match suspension for dangerous use of the elbow on Safraz Patel - an incident which sparked a flare-up and ultimatley brought Leigh's David Hill a one-match ban for punching.

Leigh scrum-half Chris Wilkinson was found guilty of an off the ball challenge on Charlton in a separate incident and was handed a three-game suspension - a decison that has left the Hilton Park club considering lodging an appeal.

To compensate for the loss of both players, coach Keith Latham has drafted teenagers Mark Burrows, Paul Blackburn and Scott Hilton into the squad for Sunday's home clash with basement club Prescot Panthers.

The line-up will be finalised tonight but Latham is warning against complacency.

"We know that to guarantee promotion we need to win our last five games and we don't want to end up with egg on our face against Prescot," he says.

"Despite their poor league position we have to treat them with respect. Barrow probably took them lightly last Sunday and they got turned over. I'm looking for a throughly professional job from my team."

Leigh's Alliance side continued their climb up the table with a 42-28 home victory over Hunslet Hawks last night.

Leigh's tries came from Joey Harvey (2), Alan Hadcroft, David Ingram, Steve Gibson, a Welsh trialist winger and Scott Aspinall who added seven goals.

Previous sport story

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.