Ex-Wigan Warriors prop Lee Mossop on Jackson Hastings, his DW return... and how Adrian Lam gave him his nickname!

The prop won Grand Final and Challenge Cup honours at Wigan, where he enjoyed two spells sandwiching an injury-hit season at Parramatta.

He is now in his third season with the Red Devils and will lead their unlikely play-offs charge as captain.

And the 30-year-old says he has tried to emulate O’Loughlin since being given the leadership responsibility by coach Ian Watson.

“It’s almost a weekly occurrence when I’ll think, ‘How would Lockers deal with this?’” he admits.

“I had a very good mentor who showed me what it takes to be a good captain.

“There were a couple of things when I was a kid when he had to pull me in line. It was nothing bad - I remember once, I was late for a meeting which had been switched, and luckily the coach believed me that I’d made a mistake and I didn’t get dropped.

“But Lockers said to me afterwards, ‘You were lucky there, make sure that doesn’t happen again’.”

Mossop still lives in Wigan, owns the Old Bank cafe in Orrell and is still friends with several of his former team-mates.

And he says he didn’t share the concern that others had when the Warriors endured a disappointing start to the season.

“When people were saying bad things, I just knew - with the personalities they had in that team - there was no way they wouldn’t turn it around,” says the Cumbrian.

“Tommy, Lockers, Faz... those characters can drag three or four along with them, I knew they’d come good.”

Salford, too, have come good with a run of eight wins to finish the regular season in third spot.

“At the start of the year it looked like it could have been, ‘Same old story’,” said Mossop. “But we turned it around and we’re playing with confidence.

“We’ve won our last eight and we’re not disrespecting anyone, but we feel if we play our best we can turn anyone over.

“I’ve missed a few games against Wigan through injury and this will be my first game back at the DW, so it’s going to be weird, but I’m looking forward to it.”

Leading Salford’s charge will be Jackson Hastings, who will join Wigan next season, and Mossop says they will be getting “a competitor, loves to win, hates to lose. He’ll fit in with the characters they have.”

Hastings admitted this week he was swayed by the chance to work with Adrian Lam, who he has known since his junior days.

And while Mossop was never coached by Lam, the current Warriors boss left his mark on the prop - he gave him his nickname!

“Lammy was the Under-20s coach at Wigan when I was in the 18s, with Waney,” smiled Mossop.

“The two squads would often train together and I remember Lammy asked my name, so I told him.

“He asked if I had a nickname, I told him I didn’t and he said, ‘We’ll call you Moose’, and walked off. And it’s stuck since then!

“It was only a couple of years ago I discovered there was a player in Australia called Rex Mossop, who was known as ‘Moose’, and he’d taken his nickname for me.”