LEIGH fans are ready to back the Centurions all-out bid for promotion to Super League.

Season ticket sales for the new Kingstone Press Championship campaign are already significantly higher than a year ago and all the signs suggest another spike in the days leading up to the opening game at home to Bradford Bulls on Sunday, February 15.

Centurions chairman Michael Norris has alerted fans who prefer to watch from the north stand that their favourite section of the Leigh Sports Village ground may soon be sold out for some games as the champions - now with a full-time squad - bid to use last season's success as a springboard to the top flight.

"We have sold 50 per cent more season tickets already than we did in total last season," he said.

"Last season we doubled our sales of season tickets in the last two weeks prior to the first game. This encourages us to believe that we will sell in excess of 1,500 season tickets this year.

"In addition we have already issued more than 500 junior season tickets which we also hope to see increased in number before the first game.

"Already a significant number of season tickets (sold) are for the north stand and I would encourage any supporter wishing to watch from that area to secure their place by buying a season ticket. Based on our forecasts, that area of the ground will soon be approaching capacity."

Leigh will compete in a re-vamped Championship alongside relegated Bradford and London Broncos, the top nine in the 2014 Championship and the champions of Championship One.

After home and away fixtures (plus the Summer Bash weekend) the top four of the Championship will join the bottom four of Super League in the Super 8s Qualifiers from which the four most successful clubs will join Super League 2016.

The Centurions, who had a comfortable 42-22 victory over North Wales Crusaders at LSV on Sunday, continue their pre-season programme of friendlies at home to Keighley Cougars on Sunday.

The kick-off has been brought forward to 2pm after the RFL requested the presence of several Centurions' first-teamers at the Rugby League Rocks event in Manchester, which starts at 6pm.

Having fielded a combination of first-team and reserve-team players against the Crusaders, Leigh are expected to field a stronger line-up this weekend as they step up their preparations for the season proper.

Nevertheless, there were eye-catching performances from some of the younger players in the victory over the Crusaders, which featured a Corey Lee hat-trick, a powerful second-row performance by new signing Andrew Dixon and a sound half-back combination between Ben Reynolds and Jack Hansen.

Centurions' assistant coach Neil Jukes was impressed by the 24-year-old Dixon, who went straight into the squad after completing his move from Salford.

"Andrew had a good debut." Jukes said. "He needs to do a bit of work in attack and defence down his flank. He was alongside Sam Peet and Ben Reynolds and did well but he will be working with Martyn Ridyard and Tom Armstrong who are different again.

"He will get used to the levels we expect but showed nice touches.

"When we bring a player to Leigh we also look to improve them; that's what we will be looking to do with Andrew."

Pleased with the performance against the Crusaders, Jukes added: "The experienced players led by what they did. Our middle men again impressed; we got more minutes into Fuifui (Moimoi) and it was good to see Oli (Wilkes) back in the core while we got good game time from Sam Hopkins too.

"Of the younger players I thought Jamie Tracey stood up and Corey Lee was very good. There were lots of positives."