{"id":896544,"date":"2026-09-18T12:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T12:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/896544\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T12:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T12:52:10","slug":"leigh-leopards-expectation-conundrum-as-play-offs-arrive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/896544\/","title":{"rendered":"Leigh Leopards’ expectation conundrum as play-offs arrive"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adrian Lam pauses when asked if reaching the play-offs once again counts as a good season for Leigh Leopards<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Consistency has not been an issue for Lam\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good question,\u201d Lam says as he ponders. \u201cBecause the fans\u2019 expectation before was that as long as we play well, they\u2019ll be happy, but I think there a change of mindset now.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s what we want. I need pressure on me as a coach. We need pressure on the players as a team.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere needs to be an expectation there. I think we set ourselves a goal to finish higher than what we\u2019ve ever finished this year. Is fifth good enough for us? Is the top six good enough for anyone? And to me, it\u2019s an honour to be a part of that<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s something that the club\u2019s never done. Four years in a row that we\u2019ve made the six. Which is an unbelievable achievement. It\u2019s hard because during the season when you\u2019re not winning, it\u2019s hard to stay positive because you want more all the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a difficult season for me, but I\u2019ve 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\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter one from seven at the start of the year I was thinking I might not have a job, to be honest!<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a difficult year. Real difficult in the sense of just not playing with the same team two weeks in a row. I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve done it all year.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then having a lot of our strike players, our finishers really miss a lot of games. I think we\u2019ve rallied really hard. There\u2019s been a resilient group there and we\u2019ve found a balance and we\u2019ve found a way to win. I think we were something like 14 from the last 18 games, which is hard to do. It\u2019s been tightrope sort of stuff all year.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI think people forget we\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it wasn\u2019t to be. And that\u2019s okay. That\u2019s part of our journey. But I think if there\u2019s going to be a difference this year, there probably needs to be an emotional connection.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adrian Lam pauses when asked if reaching the play-offs once again counts as a good season for Leigh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":896545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-896544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=896544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/896545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}