ADRIAN LAM believes that Hull FC have mimicked how Leigh Leopards play following John Asiata’s move to the MKM Stadium.
There was quite the hubbub surrounding Asiata’s move ahead of the 2025 Super League campaign after the Tongan international had played such a key role at the Leigh Sports Village.
But Lam believes that Leigh fans will give Asiata a warm welcome ahead of their fixture this weekend – but also explained the similarity in the way the two teams play following Asiata’s move there.
“They’ve pinched a lot of our players and brought a lot of experience to them. They’re playing a nice style of rugby, and in the first quarter of the season, I thought they were right on,” Lam said.
Once the season gets going, you’ve got to make sure you keep your consistency – they’ve been in and out in terms of consistency recently, but when they’re on, they’re a very difficult team to beat.
“They were unlucky last week not to win – they played well enough to win. But with our former captain coming back to the fans, they’ll make him welcome with open arms, but more importantly for us, we’re coming off the back of a loss too, and it’s not ideal for us.
“But like I said after the game, I was really happy with some of the things I saw, and I’m really looking forward to the rest of the season.
“They understand what John did whilst he was here. I also know that John has taken the style that we play here up to Hull.
“A lot of the rugby they play is very similar to how we play and that is fine as well.
“They have got some really good individual players and have a nice balance of senior players.
“The last month hasn’t been ideal for them but they haven’t been too far away.”
Of course, though Asiata had a number of NRL appearances under his belt before joining Leigh, his development at the Leopards was incredible to say the least.
And Lam believes that the development of players at Leigh is one of the best in Super League after the likes of Tesi Niu and Ethan O’Neill have impressed greatly since joining for 2025 as well.
“We are forever trying to get every player better. That’s my role as coach to bring players here that have potential and develop them so they are a player that we desire.
“I think we have done that as good as or if not better than any other club in the sense of bringing in unknowns and then everyone else paying overs to sign them.”
