Liam Kay (born 17 December 1991) is an

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

international

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 11 ...

footballer who plays on the or for

Wakefield Trinity Wakefield Trinity is a professional rugby league club in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, that plays in the Super League. One of the original twenty-two clubs that formed the Northern Rugby Football Union in 1895, between 1999 and 2016 the ...

in the

Betfred Super League The Super League (officially known as the Betfred Super League due to sponsorship from Betfred and legally known as Super League Europe), is the top-level of the British rugby league system. At present the league consists of twelve teams, of w ...

. He previously played for the

Wakefield Trinity Wildcats Wakefield Trinity is a professional rugby league club in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, that plays in the Super League. One of the original twenty-two clubs that formed the Rugby Football League, Northern Rugby Football Union in 1895, betw ...

in the Super League, and on loan from the

Wildcats The wildcat is a species complex comprising two small wild cat species: the European wildcat (''Felis silvestris'') and the African wildcat (''F. lybica''). The European wildcat inhabits forests in Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus, while the ...

Doncaster Doncaster (, ) is a city in South Yorkshire, England. Named after the River Don, it is the administrative centre of the larger City of Doncaster. It is the second largest settlement in South Yorkshire after Sheffield. Doncaster is situated in ...

in the

Kingstone Press Championship The Championship, known as the Betfred Championship for sponsorship reasons, is a professional rugby league competition. It is the second-tier competition organised by the Rugby Football League, the governing body for the sport in England, a ...

. Kay has also played for the Leigh Centurions in the

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

and the

Toronto Wolfpack The Toronto Wolfpack are a Canadian professional rugby league club based in Toronto, Ontario, who compete in the North American Rugby League. The club originally competed in the British rugby league system but withdrew in the 2020 Super Leagu ...

in the Championship and the Super League. He also spent time on loan from

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 99,251 in the 2011 census.https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks101ew Census 2011 table KS101EW Usual resident population, ...

in the

top flight Top Flight (April 15, 1929 – 1949) was an American U.S. Hall of Fame Thoroughbred racehorse. She was the leading American filly of her generation at two and three years of age. Background Bred in Kentucky by the very prominent horseman Harry ...

Background

Kay was born in

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popula ...

West Yorkshire, England West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

Career

Wakefield

Kay signed a professional contract at

in 2012 as a halfback but was mostly played on the wing. He scored 7 tries for the Wakefield Trinity Wildcats in 5 appearances. In 2013 he was sent on dual registration to

where he played at both halfback but mostly on the wing as he had done at Wakefield. He scored 12 tries in 21 appearances for Doncaster before he returned to Wakefield where a hat-trick of tries against Castleford Tigers in the closing game of the 2013 season.

Leigh

Kay signed for

side Leigh in 2014 where he played as a . In his first season with the club, they finished top of the league and won the Grand Final against

Featherstone Rovers Featherstone Rovers are a professional rugby league club in Featherstone, West Yorkshire, England, who play in the Championship. Featherstone is a former coal mining town with a population of around 16,000 and Rovers are one of the last "smal ...

to win the Championship for the first time since 2004. In 2015 Kay equalled the record for most tries in a season by a Leigh which was 36 as the Leigh Centurions again won the Championship title.

Toronto

Kay was the first-ever signing to play for the newly formed Canadian club,

, for their inaugural season in 2017. Kay ended that season as the division's top try scorer. He was also named in the

squad for the

2017 Rugby League World Cup The 2017 Rugby League World Cup was the fifteenth staging of the Rugby League World Cup tournament and took place in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea between 27 October and 2 December 2017. The tournament featured the national teams ...

. In 2018 again

would finish top of the championship and would enter the playoffs for a chance for promotion. Unfortunately Kay suffered an extremely complex injury in the first week of the play-offs, unfortunately that wasn't the first of the bad news for

as they would later fail to reach the Super league losing to London Broncos In the Million Pound Game. In 2019 Kay would miss the first few games due to the injury he sustained in August 2018. But he made his return on Canadian soil against

Bradford Bulls The Bradford Bulls are a professional rugby league club in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, playing in the Championship. They have won five Challenge Cups, six league championships and three World Club Challenges. The team jersey is predom ...

. Again

would finish top of the table and at last gain promotion to Super League with Kay firmly in the mix.

Wakefield (II)

On July 16, 2020, Kay was loaned to

from the

for the remainder of the 2020 Super League season, while also signing a two-year deal with the Trinity for 2021 & 2022.

Honours

: ::Winner: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019 * League 1: ::Winner: 2017

References

External links

Toronto Wolfpack profile
*(archived by web.archive.org
Wakefield Trinity Wildcats profile2017 RLWC profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kay, Liam 1991 births Living people Doncaster R.L.F.C. players English people of Irish descent English rugby league players Ireland national rugby league team players Leigh Leopards players Oxford Rugby League players Rugby league wingers Rugby league players from Leeds Toronto Wolfpack players Wakefield Trinity players