Leigh Leopards head coach Adrian Lam labelled his players as their ‘own worst enemy’ when reacting to a disappointing loss to Warrington Wolves.
Warrington ran in seven tries as they won 42-6 to go top of Super League with the loss and results elsewhere ensuring that Leigh dropped to the foot of the table, albeit only two points outside of the play-offs.
The first of Warrington’s tries came inside two minutes whilst Matty Ashton’s intercept try just after the 10-minute mark to make it 12-0 gave the Leopards a mountain to climb early on, something that they simply couldn’t do.
Injuries are an obvious issue for the Leopards and that was evident again today with second-rower Jacob Alick-Wiencke shifted to centre alongside debutant Will Brough, with Warrington understandably finding success down the edges.
“Just tough to watch obviously,” were Lam’s initial words when speaking post-match on Sky Sports.
He added: “(There) was a lot of late changes as well and people playing out of position but we were probably our worst enemy today and we just found it really difficult from the start.”
Leigh Leopards boss shines perspective on club’s league position
Whilst noting the injury list, Lam refused to use it as an excuse as he explained that the performance still needed to be far better than what the Leopards put forward.
Asked if improvement can come with returning bodies, Lam said: “That’s the hope but having said that the players are still a decent side that’s out on the field.
“It’s the standards and our basic principles that’s letting us down at the moment so it doesn’t matter who pulls our jersey on, we should get the same levels and we’re certainly not getting that at the moment.
“It’s easy to just fall straight through us and that’s hurt us but there’s still a lot of hope there.”
With Leigh set to face the same opponent at the same venue next week in the Challenge Cup, Lam did offer fans some hope with talk of returning players.
He said: “I think there’ll be a different picture next week, maybe one or two bodies back and a few changes.”
The slow start to the season has led to Leigh dropping to the foot of the table, however, Lam offered some perspective, stating: “We’ve just got to minimise the bleeding at the moment. We’re only, I think, four points out of the five. It might be six points down, not too sure but we’ve been in this situation before.
“I know that once we get back on track with our strongest side, we’ll get on a bit of a roll. We’ve just got to make sure we find a winner along the way and just stay positive through this process.”
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