{"id":537058,"date":"2026-04-18T02:55:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T02:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/537058\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T02:55:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T02:55:13","slug":"why-leigh-leopards-record-does-not-tell-the-full-story-with-early-criticism-an-overreaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/537058\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Leigh Leopards’ record does not tell the full story with early criticism an overreaction"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Leigh Leopards have had a difficult start to the season but those writing Adrian Lam<\/a>\u2018s side off already are way off the mark with the club\u2019s current record failing to tell the full story.<\/p>\n

Of course, Leigh\u2019s Super League record of two wins and five losses is not up to scratch for a team that placed third in the competition last year, however, it\u2019s a record that could very easily be very different.<\/p>\n

Playing with hypotheticals is dangerous but as is writing off a team based on less than a third of the season, something that plenty of people are doing given the Leopards\u2019 slow start.<\/p>\n

After Leigh\u2019s Challenge Cup defeat to Warrington Wolves, the same club who thumped Leigh 42-6 last week<\/a>, we\u2019ve looked at if criticism of Adrian Lam\u2019s side is justified or an overreaction with the overwhelming verdict being that whilst criticism is valid to an extent, it must be said that Leigh simply are not as bad as what is being made out.<\/p>\n

Why Leigh Leopards cannot be written off yet<\/p>\n

Before Castleford\u2019s loss to Wakefield last Sunday, Leigh found themselves bottom of Super League after their heavy loss to Warrington, at which point the pile-on began.<\/p>\n

It was their second such heavy defeat with their other similar loss being even worse, a 54-0 hammering to local rivals Wigan Warriors. Both of those results are simply unacceptable but they do also have some context, particularly the Wigan loss.<\/p>\n

Leigh, who have dealt with injuries all year long, lost prop forward Joe Ofahengaue to a calf injury minutes into the Wigan loss<\/a> before then seeing Matty Davis fail a HIA a minute into the second-half. A bad night at the office was rounded off with Bailey Hodgson\u2019s knee injury, of which is is still recovering.<\/p>\n

Outside of those two heavy defeats, Leigh have lost three more games but only by a combined total of 12 points, showcasing the fact they\u2019ve been competitive and arguably should have won those matches.<\/p>\n

The 18-14 loss to Wakefield was simply a case of Leigh not kicking conversions with both clubs scoring three tries. Defeat to St Helens by two points was another game that was marginal, whilst the six-point loss to Catalans Dragons was also a game of three tries per side.<\/p>\n

It should also be remembered that when fully fit, all the way back in round one, Leigh defeated Leeds Rhinos who, like St Helens and Wakefield, are among the five teams sitting atop Super League on 10 points.<\/p>\n

Bodies are slowly returning with Adrian Lam recently revealing that most players will be back by May<\/a> and Saturday\u2019s cup defeat against Warrington was evidence of their week-to-week improvement with those players such as Edwin Ipape returning to the fray.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re currently just four points outside the top six but they soon start a favourable run of fixtures in Super League with four of their next six games against fellow bottom-half teams.<\/p>\n

Judge the Leopards after that run of six games because those writing them off now are jumping the gun on the matter.<\/p>\n

Super League Rivals Round madness, broken video referee system and Challenge Cup predictions \u2013\u00a0Click here to watch the latest episode of the Serious About Rugby League Show<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leigh Leopards have had a difficult start to the season but those writing Adrian Lam\u2018s side off already…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-537058","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}