Ever since Jude Riordan appeared as Nick Tilsley’s (Ben Price) delightfully precocious son, Sam Blakeman, he’s been a firm favourite among Coronation Street viewers.

Sam first appeared alongside mum, Natasha Blakeman (Rachel Leskovac), a former lover of Nick, leading him to immediately question whether or not he could be the young lads dad. He discovered he was, and, after Natasha’s murder at the hands of Weatherfield gangster, Harvey Gaskell (Will Mellor), ended up taking him in.

Sam visited Harvey after the murder in an attempt to understand and process his grief, later struggling with selective mutism that was healed by playing chess with Roy Cropper (David Neilson) and communicating via walkie-talkie.

With Sam not being seen recently, fans worried that they’d seen the last of him, when Jude posted a fresh slew of head shots on an Instagram post.

Replying to a a worried comment questioning whether or not he’d left the soap, Sam confirmed: ‘nope! Just look very different from last year’s headshots,’ while confirming to another that he’d be returning ‘next week’.

Sam has returned to the Street, immediately being drawn into Will Driscoll’s (Lucas Hodgson-Wale) dark grooming story, which has seen him preyed on by his manipulative, paedophile sports coach, Megan Walsh (Beth Nixon) and, while fans have been absolutely chuffed to have Sam back on-screen, they’ve also been utterly blown away by just how much Jude’s grown!

Sam is all grown up

On Coronation Street’s official Facebook page, a clip has been posted of Megan confronting Sam, trying to shut his (quite right) suspicions that something is going on between Will and Megan down.

While plenty of fans are furious that Megan would stoop so low as to threaten the lovely Sam, with a few hoping that his step-mum, Leanne Battersby (Jane Danson), will give Megan the bitch-slapping she almightily deserves, most are in shock at the change in the actor.

Fernanda Fitzpatrick said: ‘Did Sam suddenly go from 10 years old to 16?! Nearly didn’t recognise him’.

Angie Holden even thought there’d been a sneaky re-cast: ‘Is he a new actor playing Sam, or is it the old Sam?’ with Susan Cooke agreeing: ‘What’s going on with Sam? Hes gone from a little boy to another little boy!’

Denise Rosenberg queried: ‘Has it been that long since we’ve seen Sam? He is so much taller and his face has changed.’

Andrew Owen-Springal wanted to divert from the storyline to say: ‘Aside from all from all of this, can we please discuss how Sam has grown up all of a sudden and got very tall.’

Sam’s role in the dark grooming story

Corrie boss, Kate Brooks, previously spoke on Sam’s involvement in the grooming story.

‘We’ll follow the Will and Megan element quite closely. It’s a very important story to tell and we want to be as truthful as possible.

‘As part of that story Sam will end up getting embroiled in it all.

‘Sam is semi-related to the pub family and he potentially gets wind that something’s amiss.

‘We will see the lengths that Megan will go to manipulate Sam into keeping quiet. It’ll be massively detrimental to Sam’s wellbeing.’