Leigh Leopards trio ruled out as Adrian Lam makes David Armstrong admission

Adrian Lam has ruled out three Leigh Leopards men through injury ahead of Magic Weekend, with four more rated as doubts. The Leopards make the journey to St James’ Park in third place having won their last four games in all competitions.

However, it seems injuries are catching up with them this week and since making the move to train at Leigh Sports Village, soft tissue issues have been a concern. The head coach gave a fairly comprehensive rundown of those injuries during his press conference on Wednesday afternoon and admitted that this week will come too soon for David Armstrong, who missed the win over Salford Red Devils last time out.

Frankie Halton and Keanan Brand won’t be involved this week either, Lam has confirmed, while there is some doubt over the fitness of Gareth O’Brien and Jack Hughes. Leigh have been without Tesi Niu and Umyla Hanley over the last few weeks, too, and the boss has admitted they are touch and go for the clash in Newcastle against Catalans Dragons, too.

“We seem to have a couple of soft tissue injuries over the last two or three weeks and it’s been since coming to train on the main pitch here,” Lam told journalists.

“There’s a couple that are in doubt, Jack Hughes. There’s still no David Armstrong this week. It’s 50/50 over Umyla Hanley and Tesi Niu, but on top of that, there’s still no Frankie Halton.”

He continued: “There’s a lot of them that have little injuries that are one or two weeks so we just have to make sure we’re professional within our recovery sessions and also how we keep working on small injuries.

“We’re doing that really well and working hard to make sure we do minimise soft tissue injuries. I think sometimes you do get setbacks when a player overextends what he needs to do to get back on time. I’m proud of our medical team and very supportive of them, they’re doing a great job.”

Leigh Leopards head coach on David Armstrong’s Challenge Cup chances

Leigh have a Challenge Cup semi-final against Warrington Wolves approaching quickly on the horizon, with the Leopards set to take on Sam Burgess’ side next week at the Totally Wicked Stadium a week on Sunday. Whether Armstrong will be involved, though, remains to be seen.

“He will be a doubt slightly for that,” Lam admitted. “That’s a call we’ll make right at the end of the week, he’s only just started to get back on his feet now.

“Having said that Bailey Hodgson has done a really good job for us at full-back and Keanan Brand was out last week so AJ Towse came in and did a great job for him, Andy Badrock came into the centres and scored two tries. The players that are coming in have certainly stepped up to do the job of the player who would have been there otherwise.”