Leigh Leopards boss makes signing plea to NRL players after accepting that stars will leave

When Adrian Lam joined the Leigh Leopards, he stated there was a five-year plan to transform the side from a Championship team to Super League challengers. That process moved faster than expected, as the Leopards won the Challenge Cup and finished in the top four of Super League in their first year after promotion.

Lam recently signed a new contract with the club, which would take him into a sixth year in charge. The Leopards are expecting a summer of transition, with some high profile departures such as John Asiata and Oliver Holmes already confirmed. Zak Hardaker is expected to join Asiata and Holmes at Hull FC, while Kai O’Donnell is likely to leave the club to move to the NRL.

However, this leaves room in the Leigh squad for incoming players, and Lam has made a plea to the NRL’s start of the future to join his ongoing project at the Leigh Sports Village.

Leigh Leopards appeal to stars of the future

Speaking in his weekly press conference has admitted that Leigh will inevitably lose players in the future. However, the Leopards will get on with the job in the event of one of their star players leaving the club.

“But what we do well here is that we develop the players and if we do lose Tom [Amone] for whatever reason, because that’s a possibility, or we lose Lachie Lam one day and we do lose Edwin Ipape and we do lose anyone else that’s from Australia, we’ll deal with it. We’ll get on with it.

“It’s not ideal for us, but what excites me about situations like that is we will take the next player to come in and we will develop them up to be like a Tom Amone. So if any young player from the NRL wants to come and be in this position, I’m happy to talk.

“To any young player in Super League that wants to come here and improve like the Kai O’Donnells and the Tom Amones and the Robbie Mulherns, come over here. We’ll sort you out, we’ll get you sorted, we’ll improve you as a player.

“So that’s the positive outlook and the way that I want to see it.”

Next phase of Lam’s plan underway

The next phase of Lam’s plan for the Leigh Leopards is underway. Lam revealed that the club will transition away from the model of signing experienced Super League players. They will instead look for younger players with untapped potential, who they can develop into top players. He is working closely with owner, Derek Beaumont, Chris Chester and Neil Jukes to build a squad for the future.

“To go up from the Championship into the Super League, I felt that we needed a lot more experienced players and to balance it out with some skill and X-factor.  I thought that we managed to get a good balance with that and a lot of players that were senior players or captains of other clubs and had that vision, so I thought that worked really well for us.

“I think we’re going through a transitional phase now where we’re going to flip it, I don’t need to explain exactly what’s going on, but you’ll see that the picture get painted over the next 12 months probably.

“Then there’ll be a third part probably two or three years after that. So it’s all really exciting but there may be some tough times through those periods where there’s a lot more youth in there that need to get that experience.”