Mike Eccles lays out plan for new era at London Broncos
Mike Eccles lays out plan for new era at London Broncos
London Broncos Director of Rugby and Performance Mike Eccles has spoken about plans for the club as it heads into a new era.
David Hughes left the club at the end of the 2024 season, ending a 27 year association with London Broncos.
Naturally, when combining this with relegation from Super League the club is set to go through a transition period.
Mike Eccles said that whilst challenging this can be an exciting chapter;
“David’s been involved with the club for nearly three decades, so “what are the implications of no David Hughes?” has been the (questions) around off-season so far. There have been lots of goodbyes, there has been an obvious turnover off the back of the insecurities around us as a club for the staff, the players, myself included.
“The investment that David made every week, every month, every year was astronomical and important for keeping London Rugby League alive.
“Just to give people an idea of, we have been double hit really. David is now not with us and there’s been no parachute payments either for the first time in around 10 years so we’ve had to really take stock of the situation. Work out what money we do have, what investment we will get and most importantly what we can generate. We will be a commercially driven club in the very near future. That will determine our existence and what kind of squad we can put together.”
“We feel we are in a position to move forward now and we’ve put in a lot of time and effort working with the off-field staff to project “what can we do here?”, and we believe we can. It’s going to be difficult but its also exciting.
“In the medium to long term we all want Super League but right here, right now we have to cut our cloth accordingly and generate as much money as we can.
Mike Eccles has also announced that Lewis Bienek, academy product Harry Stevens and Chairman’s Player of the Year for 2024 Marcus Stock will also be staying at the club.
“We have had to take stock of where we are at in terms of finances, what can we afford to put together? What money can we generate? That will determine what we can put on the field.
“There were three contracted players at the club, they were Marcus Stock, Harry Stevens and Lewis Bienek and we are delighted to announce that we can honour their contracts and that’s fantastic news for the club.
“We are also delighted to announce that there are upwards of ten players, who were with us last year, that we are in negotiations with. They are keen to stay and we are keen to have them.
“We’ve also opened negotiations with a series of other players as well, some players we are looking to bring back to the club, with London connections, which is still the way I want the thread of the team to be.
“It’s exciting times, things have started moving and we will have a lot more updates on that so hopefully that will all move very quickly.”
The club are delighted to announce that memberships for the 2025 Betfred Championship season will be available to buy from Wednesday (16th) of October and Mike is urging everyone to get behind the initiative;
“We must generate the revenue to spend on the team and we need as many membership sales as we can.
“It’s just a message to get on the journey with us. I’m here because I want to drive this club to Super League in not the long term but the medium term.
“We’re going to have a massive uprise in our (IMG) score and we feel in around two years we can get back to Super League. That’s what we are trying to do. To do that, it will require external investment which we are working hard to secure but right now it's the sales of our memberships.
“Get on the journey with us - I thought last year was amazing but we are back in Championship and we are starting again so please get on board.”
