Leigh Leopards boss Adrian Lam has said he is happy with where Leigh are in terms of recruitment.
He also said fans should “watch this space” as they look to add more big names to an already star studded squad in the next few months.
He said on the club’s website:
“I am happy because we’re just doing things that we want to see on the field, it’s our DNA as a club and I guess whilst I’m happy and excited about where we are I still feel we’ve got a couple of levels to go and I genuinely mean that.
“I want to also build the squad with adding one or two players to it in the next month or so, so watch this space.
“It’s something that we’re striving for really hard here. At the start of the year a lot of people were saying that it’s us going to be favourite to go down, come straight up and be relegated and that’s the way it’s been with promoted clubs.
“I understand all of that but we’ve just been working hard on staying in the bubble and looking at what’s in front of us and not looking back.
“We’ve set the year up to make sure we look after what we’re in control of.
“We’ve got a small squad so we feel at each stage we could be under the pump if we don’t manage things rightly so I think we’ve handled the load really well.
“Above al that I think part of the recruitment this year was to bring some experience in and get them to believe in who they were playing for and if we got that right then I thought we could get through this season in good shape and ‘survive’ if you want but that’s not a term we’ve talked about.
“Moving forward we need to make sure that we look after our retention and recruitment and have a philosophy around how we want to develop, because it’s not only about this year for us as a club.
“Derek has been very supportive along with Neil Jukes and Chris Chester in the direction we want to head into so it’s a five-year plan for us at the moment, to make sure we build and get to a point where we believe we can be if we get it right.”
In terms of retention, Lam said:
“It’s crucial that we keep the players that we want to keep and not allow them to leave anywhere else. I think everyone here is in a good space in their own life with rugby league and where they’re at with the club at the moment, which is great.
“We’re in the process of making sure everyone is secured for next year and pretty confident that that will be the case.
“Obviously there’s always a dilemma thrown in there at some stage but we’ll manage those processes and fingers crossed it doesn’t happen.
“On top of that we’ve also got to look at bringing in players that we feel can help us grow as a club and take us to the next level.”
