Adrian Lam admitted that his side’s 22-14 win over York Knights was ‘hard to watch at times’, however, he summarised well that it was just another case of securing two points as Leigh Leopards solidified their play-off position.
Whilst Leigh remain in sixth, they now sit four points clear of St Helens with just five games to go, though one of those matches is against Saints.
Speaking in his post-match presser, Lam assessed: “Overall, I think the summary is that we played a bit flat, we played against a team that was there to play, and we found a way to win and got the two points that we’re grateful for.”
He’d add: “It was a must-win tonight considering the ladder and where we sit. We needed to get that four points clear of St Helens and at least be in the six for now.
“It’s still not guaranteed and there’s a long way to go, I think we still play them along the way at home so now the focus is how far we can climb up that ladder and try to focus on a home final.”
A key period in the game was the start of the second-half and Lam expressed pleasure that his side had learned their lesson from last week’s loss to Wigan, stating: “That’s something that was a fix from the Wigan game when we messed up that first 20 minutes of the second half, so we had a focus and the thing I’ll take from tonight is that we learned as a group how to manage that better.”
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Leigh Leopards boss praises adversity amid late reshuffle
The Captain’s Challenge was prominent on the evening as well with long delays early on as each club successfully challenged the decisions of referee James Vella, with Lam admitting that the game simply didn’t flow.
He explained: “Hard to watch at times, too many stop-starts in my opinion that just ruins the flow and the momentum of the game.
“That doesn’t help but it was a real ding-dong battle… On nights like this, we’ve got to find a way to win and we did that.”
Pushed further on whether he likes the concept, he said: “I think that it’s good but I just think that we’ve got to speed the process up, try and get it done on two frames. Some of them during the year have taken two and a half or three minutes, so if you get two or three of those, especially if they’re right then they still have one up their sleeves.”
Lam had confirmed that there were a few late changes prior to the game that resulted in position changes, with one of those changes being a result of a Jack Hughes injury.
Providing an update, he said: “Jack Hughes, there was a call late made on him today not to risk it. He probably could have played but we gave Jacob Alick a start and Davy Armstrong moved to full-back, with Gaz O’Brien moving to the bench.
“That was the rotation that we had and there were people out of position, Jacob hasn’t played outside of Lachlan Lam, so that takes time and there was a bit of clunkiness there.”
Lam would also confirmed that Robbie Mulhern left the field due to a back spasm, something he said has been ‘absolutely killing him’ but that would hopefully, as in the past, go away after 72 hours.
