“Frustrating” – Aspect of Leigh Leopards’ loss questioned by Adrian Lam

Challenge Cup holders Leigh Leopards saw their hopes of repeating a Wembley win end as last season’s losing finalists Hull KR exacted revenge at Craven Park.

Despite trailing at the break, the Robins would go on to win 26-14 with second-half tries from Joe Burgess, Niall Evalds and Elliot Minchella securing Hull KR their third consecutive Challenge Cup semi-final.

It looked like Leigh Leopards might pull off another famous victory when they headed in up at the half after frustrating Hull KR but it was ultimately the Leopards who left frustrated with Adrian Lam commenting as such post-match.

Lam told Leigh Leopards TV that he felt his side actually played the best they had all year in the opening forty but just couldn’t execute late on.

He said: “We had two or three chances to pull it back but we didn’t complete it. I thought the week’s preparation was unbelievable. I thought we had a really good simple game plan that we nailed in that first 40 minutes.

“I thought it was probably the best rugby of the year that we’ve played. The second half was disappointing and frustrating because we didn’t execute the game plan and just fell on our own sword really.”

Lam noted errors and discipline as being incredibly costly as he admitted he was left hoping for a “miracle try” after the Robins nullified the Leigh threat.

“The way that we made errors and ill-discipline through penalties and offside and things like that hurt us in the end. Right up until the last set I was hoping for a miracle try but that wasn’t to be.”

Leigh Leopards not lethal enough in attack

Plenty of the narrative of the week focused on the fact that this was a repeat of the final from last year but for Lam it was simply about Leigh Leopards, despite favouritism being with the hosts.

He explained: “This week wasn’t really about them, to be honest with you. It was about making sure that our players turned up with the right attitude and give ourselves an opportunity to win the game and I thought we did that.”

Leigh Leopards made Rovers look ordinary in the first forty whilst they looked slick themselves despite missing plenty of star players, however, the lack of a cut-throat instinct is what befell them.

“At half time, in my philosophy, the game is won, we don’t need to win it again,” Lam argued.

“So, having said that, you’ve got to execute 40 minutes of perfect rugby. This first half was at 96% completion, which is as good as it gets in rugby. But the second half was around 60%.

“I think the count was 15 plus opportunities to score as well, so I can’t complain that we didn’t have a crack with the ball. We didn’t finish that off, and get points off the back of that, which is something that I need to look at, but we certainly created a lot of opportunities.

“The disappointing part for me was the errors, and then we didn’t defend the errors. We allowed KR to stroll over a couple of tries which were frustrating.”