LEIGH Centurions are seven steps away from rugby league heaven but veteran campaigner Oliver Wilkes warns: "Nothing is guaranteed.”

But captain Wilkes and his team-mates hope last Sunday’s home celebration against Doncaster is the club’s last Championship fixture for the foreseeable future.

Ten years after their last Super League game, Centurions are on the verge of the big time once more.

However, Wilkes agrees a convoluted route through the ‘Middle Eights’ back to the promised land is filled with sizeable pot holes.

Starting next month Paul Rowley’s League Leaders’ Shield winners side face: Hull KR, Widnes, Salford, Wakefield, Bradford, Sheffield and Halifax in a new mini league.

The top three receive automatic promotion; the fourth and fifth sides play-off for the final Super League spot for 2016.

Leigh won 21 of their 23 Championship fixtures, claimed two top flight scalps in the Challenge Cup and spent big to achieve their dream.

“There is no team in a better position than Leigh at this minute to have this chance,” agrees 35-year-old Wilkes.

“It is a great time to be involved with Leigh. We are a very ambitious club owned by a very ambitious person.

“I signed for Leigh because of that ambition. I had played here before and I knew it was a club heading in the right direction and I wanted to be part of it again.

“But is it a gimme we will get into Super League? Definitely not.

“The salary cap is still vastly different in Super League to what is available in the Championship. There are players who have played at the very highest level.

“So, it will be a difficult challenge. You only have to look at the teams in our division and that’s before you come up against those Super League sides.

“Halifax have been arguably the form side of the Championship lately, stringing together some great results.

“Bradford drew with us last week and still have a few numbers to bring back so they will be a different prospect again.

“Sheffield have just announced they are going full-time next year and always seem to hit the ground running at the end of the season.

“They are a tough, physical side who are well coached by Mark Aston. So, we are certainly not taking anything for granted.”

Cup wins over Salford and Wakefield and a spirited quarter-final defeat to Warrington suggest Leigh are well equipped to deal with the challenges ahead.

Wilkes, who played one game for Sheffield at 18 and also served Wakefield for two seasons, is a realist rather than a dreamer.

“We have got a couple of victories over Super League sides but they now know what they are coming up against," he added.

“I still speak to some of the lads at Wakefield and they have told me Brian Smith has changed a lot of things for the better since he took over.

“He is a world class coach with a massive reputation. Apparently there seems to be a better buzz around the place and they have recruited a number of players who will make them a different prospect when we play them next time round.

“But we are aspiring to go as far as we can and achieve our goal of getting into Super League.

“However, we will have to bring our best game if we are to get through. We want to finish in the top three and not become involved in that million pound game.”

Wilkes helped Centurions achieve elite status for 2005. But with just five points they were relegated at the end of the term and Wilkes moved on to Whitehaven.

He said: “I really enjoyed myself in 2004 and 2005. We made Super League and I’d be thrilled to bits if Leigh could do it again.

“Even if doesn’t happen this year, I am sure it will happen next year. What the club has done over the last two years has been massive, not just for Leigh but for the game itself.”