Adrian Lam pauses when asked if reaching the play-offs once again counts as a good season for Leigh Leopards.
Consistency has not been an issue for Lam’s Leopards since their return to Super League. This is their four consecutive appearance in the play-offs, something only Wigan Warriors and Hull KR, who have won the last three Grand Finals between them, have been able to achieve.
In that sense, Leigh can be proud of their efforts. But there would be an air of frustration if they were to bow out before Old Trafford once again this time.
“It’s a good question,” Lam says as he ponders. “Because the fans’ expectation before was that as long as we play well, they’ll be happy, but I think there a change of mindset now.
“And that’s what we want. I need pressure on me as a coach. We need pressure on the players as a team.
“There needs to be an expectation there. I think we set ourselves a goal to finish higher than what we’ve ever finished this year. Is fifth good enough for us? Is the top six good enough for anyone? And to me, it’s an honour to be a part of that
“And it’s something that the club’s never done. Four years in a row that we’ve made the six. Which is an unbelievable achievement. It’s hard because during the season when you’re not winning, it’s hard to stay positive because you want more all the time.
“It’s been a difficult season for me, but I’ve learned a lot about myself because. But what I want the fans and the players to be is not just be happy with making the six. Let’s go bigger than that now. Our expectations are getting higher and higher. And I want that to be the case. I want there to be pressure on the players to perform under pressure. And this is a massive week for us as a club.”
Wakefield stand in their way of a third-straight semi-final, something that felt a long way away after their slow start to the season that temporarily left them bottom of the table.
“After one from seven at the start of the year I was thinking I might not have a job, to be honest!
“It’s been a difficult year. Real difficult in the sense of just not playing with the same team two weeks in a row. I don’t think we’ve done it all year.
“And then having a lot of our strike players, our finishers really miss a lot of games. I think we’ve rallied really hard. There’s been a resilient group there and we’ve found a balance and we’ve found a way to win. I think we were something like 14 from the last 18 games, which is hard to do. It’s been tightrope sort of stuff all year.”
He added: “I think people forget we’ve been 80 minutes away from Old Trafford. Both at the hands of Wigan, at Wigan. And I challenge that nobody probably would have won those games either. And had we gone through a different path, maybe we might have got there.
“But it wasn’t to be. And that’s okay. That’s part of our journey. But I think if there’s going to be a difference this year, there probably needs to be an emotional connection.”