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SIMEON HOYLE

Hooker Simeon Hoyle, like Neil Roden, is half way through a two-year contract with Roughyeds as the club prepares for the 2008 season and another assault on promotion to NL1.
 
The 28-year-old Yorkshireman, formerly with Keighley Cougars and Halifax, was one of the first of the new boys to be signed up by Roughyeds for 2007. He is a hooker of the old school --- tough and hard-working in defence, while having plenty of know-how in making things happen from dummy half.
 
He and Andy Crabtree shared the No 9 duties for Roughyeds in 2007, Hoyle putting in 28 appearances and Crabtree 24. Often they would double up in a game, with the starting spot usually going to Simeon.
 
It was while Hoyle was at Keighley that, in 2003, he helped the Cougars to win promotion to NL1 from a third-place finish in NL2. Sheffield, Chorley and Keighley finished neck and neck on 26 points, with Cougars third on points difference.
 
However, with Hoyle at hooker, Paul Ashton at stand-off and Richard Mervill on the bench, Cougars won through to the final, beating Sheffield 13-11 at Widnes with Hoyle winning the League Express man-of-the-match award.
 
He later headed Down Under for a spell before returning to Halifax, from where he opted to sign for the Roughyeds.
 
Born in Leith, near Edinburgh, of Yorkshire-born parents, Simeon was five when he moved back to Yorkshire with his family. It was to start his love-affair with rugby league which led to one of his proudest days of his life when he captained Yorkshire under-18s. There was another red-letter day when he wen to the USA with BARLA under-21s for a series of matches which included a Test match.
 
Earlier, when still at junior school, he played for the Halifax town under-11s team against Runcorn Boys at Wembley in a curtain-raiser to the 1991 Challenge Cup final between Wigan and Saints.