ADRIAN LAM hailed two of his youngest players after they announced themselves as Leigh players with strong displays against Catalans.
AJ Towse, a recruit from York, made his Leopards debut on the wing and Bailey Hodgson switched to fullback in only his third appearance after David Armstrong dropped out with illness.
Both earned praise with Lam saying of Towse: “To have him come in here and do what he did tonight was outstanding.”
He continued: “I thought Bailey Hodgson as a fullback was brilliant too so I’m really pleased for those two boys. They are young, enthusiastic and bring energy.”
The Leopards have won their opening three games and Lam added: “I was really pleased (with the win).
“(I was) a bit nervous before the game, to be honest, with a couple of late changes and knowing that Catalans were going to come here a little bit desperate to try and get their first win.”
Lam also felt the Leopards were strong defensively: “We’re averaging less than six points a game now and that’s what we need to be at as a club to achieve what we want to achieve.”
In contrast, Dragons boss Steve McNamara cut a frustrated figure.
“They didn’t surprise us – our own team surprised us,” he said.
“We knew what Leigh would bring. I thought we were a million miles away from where our performance was last week (at Warrington).
“You can accept defeat when you play like we did last week, but this week we’re a million miles away from last week.
“Yeah we had a couple of changes which probably damaged us slightly, but no, they beat us to the punch in nearly every area tonight and we’ve paid a heavy price and that’s a really tough game for us to take as a team.”