Leigh Leopards continue to keep the pressure on the top six after their latest victory sees them two points off the play-offs.
The Leopards defeated Toulouse Olympique 40-16 in the blistering France heat, as veteran Josh Charnley crossed for four of the eight tries.
Jacob Alick-Wiencke, Liam Horne, Tesi Niu and Innes Senior also dotted down, as Adrian Lam’s men get back in the winner’s circle following a poor showing against Hull KR last week.
Toulouse suffer yet another loss, and have now gone six home games in a row without a win. Sylvain Houles’ men remain in 12th place, and are conceding an average of 27.5 points per game.
Leigh Leopards v Toulouse Olympique talking points
Locky returns as Leigh’s playoff push heats up:
After their nightmare at Craven Park last week, star half-back Lachlan Lam returned to the side and the Leopards instantly improved.
The first half especially, both Lam and Adam Cook combined brilliantly to create some well-worked attacking opportunities.
His control and game management allowed Leigh to play some silky stuff at times, with the PNG man showing glimpses of why he is one of the competition’s best half-backs.
The win puts Leigh two points off the top six, and they will be hoping that Bradford Bulls can upset St Helens later today to make that deficit stick for at least until Magic Weekend.
Toulouse burn out as key man succumbs to conditions:
The French side suffered their 12th defeat of the season, and it is arguably their worst with just too many players having off days. Both individually and collectively, they were poor. In most games this season, we have seen them have a good spell of dominance, and that took place in the 60th-75th minute, but it was nowhere near enough to defeat the Leopards
To make matters worse, forward Joe Cator had to leave the field with heat stroke, and departed the action on the half-hour mark. The heat certainly affected proceedings today, but the home side didn’t help themselves by constantly defending and using all of their energy early on.
Luckily for the Olympians, Cator was able to return to the side and feature in the second half.
Charnley increases lead as bid for new contract increases:
Increasing his lead over Ryan Hall in the all-time Super League try-scoring charts was only one part of Charnley’s game this afternoon.
Another facet was him continuing to show boss Adrian Lam why he deserves a new contract at the club.
The ex-Wiganer signed a 12-month extension last season, and with his efforts this season Leigh would be silly not to do that again.
Trout’s return to action:
Lam wasn’t the only one on his comeback this afternoon, as forward Owen Trout featured for the first time since the round 11 defeat to Hull KR.
The Cronulla Sharks-bound man was said to be dealing with personal issues in recent weeks, but he returned with a bang and was a great physical presence.
His efforts in attack set up Liam Horne’s final try that sealed the win, in what was a pleasing effort for his first game back.
