The possible reason why Leigh Leopards have had such a slow start

Leigh Leopards have had a slow start to the 2024 season with just one win in their six Super League games and having also been knocked out of the Challenge Cup, but a possible reason behind that has been unveiled.

Obviously, on the face of things the biggest issue is that the club have suffered a spate of terrible injuries and even worse is that plenty have come to their star players and in key positions.

The writing seemed to be on the wall from the first game when hooker Edwin Ipape had to be subbed off injured after just nine minutes, the Papua New Guinea international still yet to return to action.

Since then the likes of John Asiata, Tom Amone, Tom Briscoe and even Lachlan Lam have missed games with Asiata and Briscoe still unavailable.

The latest injury for Leigh Leopards comes at another crucial position with full-back Gareth O’Brien set to be sidelined for six weeks with a calf tear.

But why is that Leigh have had so many injury issues? Adrian Lam has now spoken on Leigh Leopards YouTube channel revealing a behind-the-scenes issue that could be the cause of all their problems.

Why Leigh Leopards have had so many injuries this season?

Lam has revealed that the club had a change in their Strength and Conditioning coach which led to a vacancy in the role for a number of weeks, and perhaps that’s led to a number of issues.

He explained: “Yeah, we’ve had those conversations over and over and over again. It’s a difficult one because some of them are a little bit of bad luck, such as Edwin’s injury.

“We had a change of S&C coach at the start of the year at the start of pre-season and no one was appointed for four weeks so that was a big disruption for us we missed out on a lot of that, not ideal but it is what it is.”

He did explain that the disruption didn’t necessarily cause the injuries, the old adage that correlation doesn’t equal causation, however, it’s certainly not something that has helped.

“That doesn’t guarantee that the science would say that and the players have played and had plenty of time to get it right so there’s a little bit of something there that we’re still trying to get to the bottom of and forever asking questions within ourselves and myself as a coach.”

Leigh looking to get to the bottom of their injury problem

Lam was then asked a further question about the issue and it’s a question that those at Leigh have asked themselves “a thousand times”

He clarified: “Just so everyone understands, we’ve asked this question a thousand times, we’ve gone over an independent view of how it’s all set up to get to this point.

“We had a staff member that left right at the beginning of our pre-season, so we went over that Christmas period, leading the Christmas difficult time to employ someone. We went probably six weeks without an S&C coach. So whether, if that had any impact on it, I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s played a little part of it.”

The current injury issues will persist but they have been able to welcome Robbie Mulhern back into their squad this week which is a welcome surprise, however, they’re set to face an in-form Warrington Wolves on the road so the situation might not get any better soon.

Details on how to watch that game and all other rugby league games on TV can be found here.