Greenwood, 21, a close season recruit from Hilton Park at the end of 2007, put pen to paper yesterday to end subtle speculation that he was being hunted by Widnes, where he had a loan spell during the early years of his career with St Helens.

The Oldham-based player, a former protege of coach Matt Calland at Hopwood College near Middleton, joins Bob Beswick, Ben Black, Sean Penkywicz and Mark Gleeson in commiting his future to the club.

"Over the next two and a half years we want to build a squad of predominantly English players capable of making the step up to Super League with us," said Calland.

"I've got no doubt that Miles is capable of doing that.

"He's young, he's improved 100 cent over the last year and I am sure he will continue to get better over the term of his new contract.

"He's still got things he needs to improve on, but he's got a lot of talent and a great work ethic.

"I'm excited about his potential."

In the short term, the immediate target for both Calland and Greenwood is to dispose of a Leigh side flirting dangerously with the relegation zone.

"We have had two good nights' training this week, including one just looking at the way we defended at Gateshead last weekend," said Calland, who believes this week's announcement that Ian Millward will return to Leigh in 2010 could also have an indirect bearing on tonight's contest.

"Most of the problems were technical, people not being in position to tackle rather than people not being able to tackle.

"The players know they need to improve tonight, because Leigh are not in a great position in the table and that makes them dangerous.

"Leigh's players know Millward is coming back, they know he'll be getting the DVDs sent out to Australia and they know they're playing for contracts.

"That might have an effect too."


Barrow survived a late fightback by Toulouse to go top of the Championship last night.

The Raiders, with Wakefield's Jamie Rooney on debut, won 30-22.