LONDON BRONCOS coach Danny Ward intends to keep faith with the players who earned promotion for their Super League campaign in 2019.

Ward, who has taken the Broncos back to the top flight in his first season as head coach, hopes to add “a bit of quality” but says he is happy to reward the players who defied all expectations by finishing runners-up in the Championship and winning the Million Pound Game.

And one of the first names on his Super League squad list will be home-grown full-back Alex Walker, who was named as man of the match in the Broncos’ 4-2 win over Toronto at the Lamport Stadium despite dislocating three fingers, breaking one of them, inside the first minute of the match.

“It was an unbelievable effort from the kid,” said Ward on the team’s return to Gatwick Airport yesterday morning. “He was outstanding all game.

Walker, 23, a Scotland international who made his Super League debut during London’s relegation season in 2014, is among a crop of highly promising youngsters who have been brought through the club’s junior system who will now be given the chance to prove their worth at the highest level.

“I’ll sit down with the owners and the chief exec this week to look at next year but I’m happy to put my faith in this squad,” Ward said.

“I can’t see wholesale changes, we’ll add a bit of quality but I want to work with this group of players even more so at Super League level.”

The Broncos will receive £1 million extra in central funding as a result of promotion.