{"id":768573,"date":"2026-09-12T18:22:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T18:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/768573\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T18:22:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T18:22:16","slug":"leigh-leopards-boss-explains-stars-absence-and-confirms-fresh-blow-after-ill-disciplined-defeat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/768573\/","title":{"rendered":"Leigh Leopards boss explains star’s absence and confirms fresh blow after ill-disciplined defeat"},"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

Adrian Lam has assessed Leigh Leopards\u2019 home defeat to Wakefield Trinity that\u2019s seen them miss out on the chance at a home play-off game against the same opponents.<\/p>\n

Leigh needed to win by 28 points or more to jump to fourth and in turn host Wakefield next Friday in the play-off eliminators, however, they lost 19-8<\/a> in a performance that Lam felt was uncharacteristic of the Leopards\u2019 recent form.<\/p>\n

Speaking in his post-match presser<\/a>, Lam explained his frustrations lie with the performance as opposed to missing out on the home play-off game, as he stated:\u00a0\u201cWe wanted a better performance than that, obviously. I felt pretty frustrated watching the game, it didn\u2019t get too many heights in the sense of how we wanted to play. I didn\u2019t see that at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was too many stop-starts. I think the penalty count was ten to four or five and I just thought it was too many penalties that were uncharacteristic of the last three months of rugby.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first 25 to 30 minutes, all we did was defend and I didn\u2019t think we were that type of team to be that ill-disciplined. I\u2019m very frustrated with that side of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dissecting Leeds Rhinos v Wigan Warriors, St Helens miss the six and Wakefield make statement \u2013 Click here to watch the latest episode of the Serious About Rugby League Show<\/a><\/p>\n

Leigh Leopards lose Robbie Mulhern as Isaac Liu absence explained<\/p>\n

Despite being on the wrong end of the penalty count through their own ill-discipline, Leigh did manage to dominate in terms of line breaks and they were still in with a shot for the majority of the game.<\/p>\n

Most Read on Serious About Rugby League<\/p>\n

That\u2019s something the Leigh boss took pleasure in, explaining: \u201cI felt that even though we were miles away, we still had a chance to win the game with ten minutes to go, so we\u2019ll hold onto that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Leopards were without leader Isaac Liu for the match, meaning Nathan Wilde featured in a first Super League match of the year, but Lam was able to allay any injury concerns as he confirmed that Liu\u2019s absence was on account of his wife\u2019s pregnancy.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cHis wife and family are just in hospital delivering the baby as we speak. I\u2019m not sure if the baby has come through yet but I hope baby and mum are healthy and well. That\u2019s just part of life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably not a bad thing that we can get him back next week because he is one of our leaders. We had to make a call on him, we gave him up until 6 o\u2019clock to be ready but it didn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

As such, Liu will return next week and he\u2019ll be needed as the club are fearing that Robbie Mulhern, who will leave to join Castleford Tigers, will be done for the play-offs.<\/p>\n

Lam confirmed: \u201cWe\u2019re pretty sure that he\u2019s done his calf. We\u2019ll know a little bit more on Monday but it didn\u2019t look good.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s had that same injury for the last two years, on and off, so that might be his season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsaac Liu will come back next week. I think Jack Ashworth will be a chance, Keanan Brand will be a chance of coming back.\u201d<\/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":"Adrian Lam has assessed Leigh Leopards\u2019 home defeat to Wakefield Trinity that\u2019s seen them miss out on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":768574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-768573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768573","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=768573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}