ADRIAN LAM has vowed to generate a response from his Leigh Leopards after they gave him a birthday to forget.
The Challenge Cup-winning head coach turned 53 on Friday, but Leigh suffered a humiliating 52-10 defeat to Hull KR in a rematch of their Wembley final two weeks earlier.
It was their biggest loss since returning to Super League and provided a further check to the end-of-season ambitions of the fourth-placed Leopards, who next host Huddersfield Giants this Friday.
Leigh were competitive in their first match following their Wembley triumph, against league leaders Catalans Dragons.
But Lam believes the ‘Challenge Cup hangover’ has now hit them.
“The danger when you have such a high, winning the Challenge Cup, is that you’ve got a downer for a little while,” he said.
“I thought we were right on it last week, but it seems to have been a delayed response.
“I’m not happy about it, I’m disappointed, but also I’ve got their backs.
“I want them to know that we’ll be okay and I want everyone else to know that we’ll be okay.
“We’ll get through this together and respond as soon as we possibly can.
“We’ve got a home game next week, which will be handy for us, and it’s against a team that are desperate to improve.
“You’ll see a really strong response from us next week.”
Earlier last week, Lam stressed that Leigh remain eager to build on their positive league start.
“Being equal second (in the table) when we came out of that (Cup final) was an incredible achievement, but we believe we’ve still got our best rugby ahead of us,” he said.
“We believe that the competition is open for anyone to win and that we have a chance if we play our best rugby.
“As much as that was a great moment and honour for the town and the team, we’ve had to focus everything into this Super League competition now.
“We want to get what we’ve earned so far and certainly play good rugby to make sure we finish as high up the table as we can.”
