Leigh coach delivers brutally honest assessment of ‘uncharacteristic’ St Helens defeat

Leigh boss Adrian Lam believes the Leopards’ performance in Friday night’s narrow defeat at St Helens was their worst in nine months, left to bemoan ‘uncharacteristic’ errors.

Lam’s Leopards travelled to Saints on the back of a win in their first Super League game of the year against Leeds Rhinos last weekend, and were leading 16-12 come the break at the BrewDog Stadium.

That four-point advantage could, and should, have been more: and Leigh’s poor ending to the first half continued into a second which saw them fail to score a try.

Ending up as losers by a 20-18 margin, the Leopards have been left with plenty of food for thought ahead of next week’s trip to neighbours Wigan Warriors.

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‘We probably haven’t played that poorly since the Challenge Cup semi last year here against Warrington’

Leigh made ten errors on the night compared to Saints’ 12, but lost the penalty count 9-2: underlining just why they spent so much of the second half camped on their own try-line.

Post-match, head coach Lam drew comparisons to the Leopards’ Challenge Cup semi-final defeat to Warrington Wolves last May, which took place at Saints’ home and was a game in which they didn’t show anything like their best.

He said: “We’re very frustrated that we put ourselves under pressure with so many penalties and errors against, it’s uncharacteristic.

“Some players didn’t have their best games, and we’re a new team trying to find some comfort in trying to chase the game towards the end, but we just couldn’t get that together.

“I understand it’ll take a bit of time, but we’re all very disappointed. The tries they scored were all pretty soft, and that’s the most disappointing thing.

“We probably haven’t played that poorly since the Challenge Cup semi last year here against Warrington.”

Josh Charnley, Innes Senior and Bailey Hodgson had all grabbed first-half tries for Leigh, with Adam Cook missing his first conversion on a blustery night but making up for that with a penalty at the beginning of the second half.

Lam added: “We defended a lot on the try-line on the back of our errors and penalties, and I’m proud of them for that, but we didn’t execute our defence under pressure when it mattered most.

“We hadn’t been up to their 20-metre line the whole second half, we finally get up there and we kick one dead. Then we throw one into touch.

“There was a lot of stuff (in our play) that was made-up rubbish. I’ve got to do a fair bit of coaching to get things right, and that’s my job.

“It’s a learning curve, a typical Round 2 type of performance. It’s a game that got away.”