LEIGH Leopards head coach Adrian Lam praised his side’s resilience after watching them turn a “trainwreck” into a 20-16 win over Warrington with three tries in the space 10 minutes in the closing stages.
Warrington looked poised for a much-needed win to boost their rapidly fading play-off hopes after dominating for more than an hour of this game, building a lead on the back of a try-of-the-season contender created by Josh Thewlis and finished by Matt Dufty.
Josh Thewlis added a second and Marc Sneyd kicked three penalties, but Leigh pulled it out of the fire late on with two tries from Umyla Hanley before Owen Trout got the winner in the 76th minute to lift Leigh to within a point of second-placed Wigan.
“I’m really proud,” Lam said. “I think I was frustrated for most of the game, I was angry, caught up in my own emotions which I try hard not to do. But to find a way to win it at the end, I guess that’s resilience, that’s belief.
“I went in at half-time angry, frustrated, I was going to blow up and the players more or less intercepted me and said, ‘It’s okay coach, chill, we’ll be okay’. I was like, ‘Really?’ but the feedback was we still had belief.”
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Lam admitted he could barely remember the last 15 minutes of the game given the number of things going on, but it is a night that can boost their confidence going into the final weeks of the season.
“It was a trainwreck for the majority of it,” he said. “I think we made four clean breaks in the first half and couldn’t score. We should have led 18-whatever. In the second half we never got into their 20. We finally did on 60 minutes and dropped it on third tackle.
“It felt like one of those nights when we weren’t connected but the most impressive part was when the game was in the balance my players stood up when it counted the most.”
With Warrington 14-2 up Toby King had what might have been a decisive try ruled out for obstruction by video referee Marcus Griffiths, and moments later Hanley got Leigh’s first – deemed to have got his hand to Gareth O’Brien’s kick with the try standing after a lengthy check.
It was a pivotal moment in the game, and not one Sam Burgess was happy with.
“I’m not allowed to talk about it,” he said. “Unless I have anything nice to say I’m not allowed to say anything.”
But he did have nice things to say about his team as he struggled to understand how they ended up on the losing side.
“I thought it was a great game, a real intense game,” he said. “I thought our game was much better, we looked much more like ourselves. The break has been good for us.
“They’re a great side, they threw a lot at us in the last 15 minutes and we didn’t handle it as well as we should have but we kept turning up and I’m proud of them…I didn’t feel we deserved to lose it. I’m disappointed we lost but I’m proud of them.”
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