LEIGH joint-coach Paul Arnison believes his side’s performance against Wigan on Thursday can fill them with optimism as they look to the second half of the season.
They might have lost 68-4, but for large periods of the game, the Leopards competed hard and Arnison saw positive signs to indicate improvement on their opening two league matches against Huddersfield (26-0 defeat) and Featherstone (34-8 win).
Leigh still have to face York, Leeds and St Helens in the opening phase of the season, but for Arnison, more performances like the one they produced on Thursday will yield more wins when they regularly come up against the sides in the bottom half of the table following the division into two sections.
“Overall, the main thing for us was how proud we were of the girls after the game,” said Arnison, who took over from Kieron Purtill in January alongside Nigel Johnson.
“There were some areas of the park where the girls stood up and there were periods of the game where we really dug in, stemmed the flow and really competed.
“We are developing and building as a squad, so when we get to the league split and we’re probably playing Barrow, Featherstone and Huddersfield repeatedly, we do feel we will be in a position to compete.
“We’ve already built the structure and the shape, so now we are trying to refine it, get that extra yard of pace and get the passing flowing a bit quicker.
“If we keep working hard at that, when get into back-end of the season we’ll be right on it and hopefully get some success off the back of it.”