Adrian Lam believes that some of his Leigh Leopards players “let us down” in defeat to Warrington Wolves, after a poor showing away from home.
The Leopards lost 42-6 at the Halliwell Jones Stadium, in the first of back-to-back meetings between the sides.
Last week saw Warrington claim two league points, putting them top of Super League, but this week a spot in the Challenge Cup semi-finals is up for grabs.
With an all-or-nothing tie coming up, Lam is hoping for a significantly improved performance this time around, because if not the club’s dream of another Challenge Cup win will be thrown into touch.
“I feel very disappointed with the way we played last week,” the PNG man said to the press today [Wednesday].
“Hopefully there’s a better response to that, but I think we can control a lot of our actions that we did or didn’t do last Saturday. So, we’ve got an opportunity to try and turn that around.
Refusing to use injuries as an excuse, Lam believed there was more than enough star quality in Leigh’s 17 to at least put in an improved showing against the Wolves.
“We can’t control that outcome of who’s in and who’s out in the sense of injuries and whatnot,” the boss explained. “Every week is certainly important to us. It’s more about our standards and us as a club and the DNA.
“We want to be performing a lot better than what we have. Even though we’ve got a lot of players out, I feel that the players that are pulling their jersey on have let us down a bit.
“I’ve questioned that and made sure that we needed a better response this week from the 17 that pull the jersey on.”
Whilst effort and grit were a problem last week, Lam spoke on how some combinations just aren’t working as hoped, however there is plenty of time this year to get those right.
“It’s about our standards and just what we want to do, how we want to play. There’s just no connection there at the moment. [Lachlan] Lam and [Adam] Cook haven’t been connecting quite well with [Gareth] O’Brien.
“We certainly missed Edwin [Ipape] through the middle there, so we’re trying to build those combinations every week. Like I said, we need a really tough performance this weekend to build some confidence.”
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