North Wales Crusaders have continued to bolster their squad ahead of the 2022 campaign as Callum Hazzard has signed a new deal with the club.

Hazzard, who came through the academy system at Super League champions St Helens like a number of other players in Crusaders’ squad, first featured for the club on loan in 2019, gaining valuable experience at League 1 level.

His performances in a North Wales shirt earned him a Super League debut, featuring for Saints at London Broncos the same year, and he also picked up a number of club awards.

After turning out for St Helens’ reserves side in 2020 before the campaign was cut short because of the pandemic, Hazzard returned to Crusaders ahead of 2021 and was a key part of Anthony Murray’s squad last term.

On his new deal with North Wales, Hazzard said: “There wasn’t any doubt about it.

“I’m really looking forward to next season and hope we can build on what we’ve done.

“We knew we were more than capable of competing like we did and that showed. 

“I don’t see why we can’t keep on progressing and maybe go a couple of steps better.

“We’ve got a lot of young lads in the squad and, going off last year, we’ll only get better with more experience. 

“When you think how we started, last season was brilliant. 

“We weren’t far off early on, but we didn’t get the results and the defeat to Doncaster really kickstarted our season.

“The feeling around the place was great and everyone was buzzing when we went on that run.

“The new stadium we’re playing at is a brilliant place and it’s been great to see new supporters who’ve never watched rugby league before coming down.

“League 1 is always a very tight competition and that’ll be the same again next season.

“I think there’ll be as many as eight teams competing for those top places and we’ve just got to try to build on what we’ve done last season.”