Leigh Leopards coach Adrian Lam provides update on key man following St Helens win

Leigh Leopards will be without key man Gareth O’Brien for their trip to Castleford Tigers on Thursday night after failing a head injury assessment in their win over St Helens.

The 32-year-old left the field midway through the second half of Leigh‘s impressive 46-4 win over St Helens on Thursday night following a high tackle from Jonny Lomax, which the Saints skipper was sin-binned for.

O’Brien left the field for a head injury assessment and didn’t return to the field, meaning the concussion protocol will see him miss their next game against his former club Castleford on Thursday night, and potentially the rearranged game against Wigan Warriors the following Tuesday (August 6).

Speaking in his post-match press conference, Lam said: “I need to have a look at that (tackle) on a different angle because you couldn’t really see it from where I was.

“Gaz is not really well at the moment so I think he’s on his way to hospital which is not good news, but we’ve got to make sure that we take care of him in the next 24 hours to make sure he’s okay.

“There was a couple of other niggles which we’ll assess over the weekend, but there was nothing to major, I’m hoping.”

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It was the first time this season that Lam has been able to field a full strength squad after an injury-hit first half of the campaign, with the experienced Zak Hardaker missing out on selection in the matchday 17.

The Leopards were good value against Saints, running in eight tries through Umyla Hanley, Tom Amone, Darnell McIntosh, Kai O’Donnell, Josh Charnley (2), Lachlan Lam and Matt Moylan.

“Very pleased, very happy,” Lam said. “I think we completed at 95 per cent (in the first half) which we haven’t done all year so that’s been a massive focus for us over the last couple of weeks.

“I’m pleased that we’ve got that and it was a physical start so we needed to be in that place and we nailed that part of the game which I’m very pleased about.

“I’m happy because we’ve been on the wrong side of the scoreboard against Saints on a lot of occasions. I thought our attack was unbelievable and we nailed a lot of the skill and we probably left four or five tries out on the field too.

“Days like this don’t come around too often, we’re proud and we know we’re working hard towards that.

“Saints had a few out injured and (Jack) Welsby doing a hamstring, it looks like he’s going to be out for a fair while now so that’s not good for them, but it’s always tough when you’ve got those injuries to get the win or to get on a bit of a roll.

“But for us, we’ve got a really important night tomorrow (Saturday) night. We’re going to support one of our local (UFC) fighters Tom Aspinall as a group and that’ll be a great experience as well.”

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