Leigh Leopards boss Adrian Lam has provided an honest assessment of his side’s 22-8 defeat to Hull KR last night.
The result and performance would come as a huge shock to many, with Leigh winning six from their previous seven matches heading into the tie.
Their only defeat in that run was to the Robins, which made many think that they could use that loss to go one step further last night, but instead it went the opposite way.
“Shambolic” and “disgusting” were some of the words used by Sky Sports pundit Jon Wilkin to describe the performance, and whilst boss Lam wasn’t as strong as that, he still let it be known where his side frustrated him most.
Speaking to Sky post-match, after waiting a very long time to leave the coaches’ box, the Leigh head coach said: “It was very frustrating to watch, to be honest.
“We hung in there until half-time without the ball and made a lot of mistakes. We had plenty of opportunities in good field to attack, and we just looked clunky as anything.
“We haven’t been like that for a long time, but I guess we looked fatigued, just looked tired. A five-day turnaround doesn’t help and five positional changes doesn’t help.
“I don’t think we were good enough with the ball tonight.”
Fatigue was the big factor in the display according to Lam, but that doesn’t count for the huge number of errors made by the side, and at crucial moments too.
He added: “We made a lot of mistakes, Matty Davis scores that try there, and we’re six points behind with 10 minutes to go.
“We were never in the game, so that’s how close we were when you look at the bigger picture, but just our mistakes allowed them into our zone.
“Two kick tries and a dummy half try, those were soft, we just weren’t connected there tonight.”
Asked if there were any possible positives to take from the game, Lam replied: “We got through Tesi [Niu] and Umyla [Hanley].
“I thought there was plenty of effort out there, there’s no question about that. I just think we picked wrong options. We kicked at the wrong times, kicked to the wrong corners, we just didn’t stick to the game plan.”
Lam confirmed that both Lachlan Lam and Josh Charnley will return to the side next week, in what is a big boost for the Leopards.
