Leigh Leopards prediction made as pundit highlights ‘key’ to progress

Leigh Leopards hopes of securing a spot in Super League’s top two are far from over, according to Sky Sports pundit Sam Tomkins.

The Leopards saw their run of impressive form come to an end on Thursday night as Leeds Rhinos secure their second win of the season over Adrian Lam’s side with a 22-14 win at Leigh Sports Village. That ensured Leigh missed the chance to leapfrog Wigan Warriors and move into Super League’s top two.

And, following Wigan’s win over Warrington Wolves on Friday night, the Leopards now find themselves three points off the top two pace. Of course, as it stands Leigh would have a home game in the play-off eliminator round, but they can move to within just one win of the Grand Final should they pip the Warriors to second.

With just six games remaining, the odds are most certainly against them. However, their six remaining opponents are all below them in the league table, with the current bottom three all due to make the journey to Leigh Sports Village.

As such, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Leigh end the season on another winning streak, and Tomkins believes they’re still firmly in the race.

Sky Sports pundits on Leigh Leopards

“They’ll be favourites in every game going forward for the rest of the year,” he said on Sky Sports. “I think given what we’ve seen from them in the last five weeks, you’d expect that in the next six weeks, they’re going to win I’d say all of those games and put themselves in a great position and put pressure on Wigan.

“Wigan can’t slip up now when they have teams behind like Leigh.”

Jon Wilkin added: “Leigh are a learning team. We saw that last time out against Leeds, they learned some really harsh lessons and applied it for four or five weeks and they’ll learn some lessons from this, about execution and taking chances and just living in those tough moments.

“They got away with it last week, but they’re a strong learning team and they’ll get better from this.

“I think when (Edwin) Ipape is off the field, they don’t look as effective, the same with Isaac Liu so finding those moments where you have Matt Davis and Ben McNamara on the field and still being effective and score points and I think that’s the key for them, being good in the moments they’re off the field.

“When Ipape and Liu start and they’re controlling the tempo and the physicality, they’re a better team.”