Leigh Leopards ready for play-off charge as Mark Applegarth commends York Knights effort

Clear-cut chances were at a premium as Gareth O’Brien and Xavier Va’a traded first-half tries before Adam Cook’s penalty put the Leopards into a narrow 8-6 lead at the break.

Josh Charnley and Jacob Alick-Wiencke crossed in 10 second-half minutes to get the visitors back on track as they moved up to 10th in the table.

Leigh, who have been decimated by injuries, are welcoming some of their key players back to full fitness and Lam believes the victory at the LNER Community Stadium could be the turning point of the campaign.

“Obviously grateful that we got the two points, it wasn’t pretty but I think we were really tough and resilient throughout,” said the Leigh head coach.

“I think we’ve had a pretty tough draw and along the way we’ve just got to find those two points every now and then.

“In my experience, the players that probably wouldn’t play the games when the first 13 or 17 players come back into the system, everybody lifts and then you get on a roll.

“We’ve done it two or three times in the last five years in my time here and I know that’s coming.

“You’ve just got to pinch the wins like we did tonight to keep that belief, trust and momentum bubbling. Our confidence has been low this year because of the tight results where we should have won another two or three games.

“But I think we got a little bit of that back tonight and we’ve just got to keep that trust and belief moving forward because when it comes, it’ll come thick and fast. I’m confident that’ll happen.

“The first quarter of the season has gone, hopefully in the next quarter we can find ourselves back into that top six.

“So if we can do that as a basic goal, we’re going to certainly head in the right direction. I think something like 10 out of the last 14, in the second half of the season, are at home. So that’s another positive for us.”

York fell to a fifth straight league defeat but head coach Mark Applegarth remained positive after their battling display.

“I don’t think I can ask for more effort from my team, but ultimately Leigh iced their moments and we didn’t,” he said.

“It’s a very tough loss when you put in an effort like that and it is never nice to be on the losing end like that, but we’ve got to learn our lessons.

“You’ve got to learn some pretty ruthless lessons and the only way you do learn those lessons is going through that process, and we’ve just got to make sure we ice the opportunities when we create them.”