ADRIAN LAM was full of admiration after his Leigh Leopards took a big step towards clinching their play-off place by winning 20-16 at Leeds Rhinos.
League leaders Leeds hadn’t been beaten all season at Headingley, but Leigh scored four tries to two with some heroic defending seeing out the result.
By winning seven of their last eight, the Leopards have sprung into not only the top six, but strong contention for the top four, which is only two points away.
So it’s all to play for with games against Bradford Bulls, Huddersfield Giants and St Helens to come, before finishing the regular season at home to Wakefield Trinity.
“We’re aware of our run coming up and we’ve rallied really hard after such a poor start,” said coach Lam.
“I still can’t get my head around being in the top six with the injuries we’ve had.”
Lam reckoned the performance at Leeds may have been their best, certainly defensively.
“It was a completely different game to what we’ve been used to – we had to find a way,” he said.
“We hung in there together and that’s probably the best we’ve done that all year. It was up there as a defensive performance – I didn’t think we’d get that level of commitment to each other.
“The gods of rugby league reward people like Umyla (Hanley, who did enough to deny Ryan Hall a late Leeds try) and we won some really big moments. We got a bit of luck tonight but I felt we deserved it.
“We didn’t get a penalty or six again in the second half which again shows how good we were. Going down to twelve men (when Andy Badrock was yellow carded), everything seemed to be going against us.”