Adrian Lam has reflected on Leigh Leopards win over York RLFC.
It was a lot tougher than anyone expected as the Leopards went down to 11 players in the game and trailed 14-6 at the break.
Speaking after the game, Lam said it was uncharacteristic:
“Just uncharacteristic really of who we’ve been over the last couple of months. But I said to them at half time that it’s a situation that I don’t mind being in to see how we respond to it. So second half obviously, 40 minutes we were a lot better.
He did underline that he was proud of his players’ character:
“We showed character and courage are key words that come to mind but you know I think you’ve seen it in the past in Challenge Cup matches where you can go and travel anywhere and be red hot favourites and upsets happen so you know we thought we addressed that during the week but you know.
“But at the start that we gave ourselves was really difficult and was just climb our way back out of trouble so just proud of them in the end I guess to get that result and start the competition.”
“We played 80 minutes with 12 men don’t forget or nearly 80 minutes with 12 men but I just it was just important that we stuck together and gave ourselves a chance in the last 20 minutes.”
He also had his say on the red card for Kai O’Donnell:
“Yeah I need to have a close look at that Kai is not that sort of player you know like whether they take that in consideration you know it didn’t look good from where I was and but having said that no like I said he’s an absolute perfect gentleman rugby league player he’s not that type of player so we’ll deal with that on early next week.”
Lam also explained how the fact the draw taking place before the game had an impact:
“I think there was a lot of anxiety from watching that through the whole players. And then the draw before our kick off I thought was a little bit unfair as well in the sense of why would they do that when we’re talking about who could potentially play us next week and minds are drifting everywhere so that all played a part I reckon so something that we’ll address again next week.”
