“I think it’s a…” – Leigh Leopards coach offers stance on disciplinary issues

Adrian Lam has become the latest of several coaches to offer their opinion on the current state of discipline in Super League with the Leigh Leopards coach labelling it a “move in the right direction”.

Lam and the Leigh Leopards actually had three men have their cases heard at the Operational Rules Tribunal last night, despite not playing over the weekend.

That’s because following the Round One charges the Leopards were granted special dispensation to have their appeals heard at a later date given owner Derek Beaumont not being in the country.

That meant Beaumont was present at the tribunal last night where both Jack Hughes and Ricky Leutele saw their bans subsided on appeal, whilst Tom Amone’s Grade C charge was amended to Grade B and just a one-match ban.

Speaking ahead of that tribunal at yesterday’s press conference, the Leigh Leopards coach stated: “The best case scenario is that all three play on Friday night for us. I know there’s a lot of grey area around at the moment with the rulings and interpretations of rules in the RFL and everything else that’s going on with that.

“We feel really strongly that the three cases we got are cases that we can defend and obviously that’s why we’re going up tonight. We’re going to defend our players, we think it’s the right thing to do, not only for our player but for the game and the sport.”

“We’ll get there” – Leigh Leopards coach discusses the new head contact approach

Lam also spoke about the RFL statement that accompanied the disciplinary news on Monday with the RFL effectively stepping back on Nu Brown’s red card as they admitted it shouldn’t have been red.

That statement also confirmed a meeting to be held today, something that Lam also confirmed he’d be attending.

He noted: “I think it’s a positive move in the right direction. We’ve had several coaches meetings and we’ve got one tomorrow. We’ve stood up and shown our concerns, which are the concerns that are coming from everyone, from every angle at the moment.

“It’s not like it hasn’t been flagged prior to this point. I think it’s important that we acknowledge that because we’re fighting hard to come up with the right result for, not only for our sport, but for the direction that the game wants to head in here in regards to the welfare of concussion and heads and insurance and all that sort of policy.

“I think everyone understands where we want to go to, it’s just how we get there and that journey along the way to getting that balance right. I feel strongly that we will do that. It may take six weeks, six months, but we’ll get there.”