Zak Hardaker’s season OVER

Leigh Leopards are headed to Hull KR after their defeat to Wigan Warriors cost them fourth spot in the league and a home play off game, a first ever play off game in the history of Super League.

A devastating loss for a club who deserved to celebrate a terrific season at home with a play off game.

Adrian Lam said after the game: “Yeah, very tough game but everyone’s got through okay. Tough in the sense of in all areas such as where we ended up finishing on the ladder without a result and just an adjustment to the rest of the ladder.

“I was very proud of the effort and energy as I always am. They were a really resilient, tough team.

“Obviously we had a few key people out in key positions, like Ricky Leutele on the left, Hardaker on the right, John Asiata through the middle and Frankie Holton off the bench. They’re four really important players for us.

“So we had to try and adjust our rugby a little bit to suit. The best way of doing that is to put your best foot forward in a cracker game and everyone get through it and give our best.

“We were pretty close and didn’t get the money but I felt there was a lot of positives in that.”

He also spoke about the Oliver Gildart no try:

“Yeah, I looked at that and 100% I think any rugby league fan, supporter, media, administrator, anyone involved in the game knows that that was a try except for the two people that counted the most.

“You can’t change that now, we’ve just got to get on with it. You can’t do anything about it, we’ll sort things through the official way on things like that and we’ve just got to get on with it because the semi-finals are here.

“We’ve worked really hard to hold a place in this in the semi-final and the top six, we’ve earned the right to do that and it’s been an incredible journey this year and success and memories, but we’re not finished.”

Making matters worse it was confirmed that Zak Hardaker’s season is over.

“Zak’s having an operation tomorrow so he’ll be out for the rest of the season.”

John Asiata is also a concern:

“We’ll get a little bit of clarification on Asiata tomorrow as well, how long term that is or how immediate that is. So I’ll have a specialist look at the scans tomorrow and then we can make some decisions on the squad moving forward.”