Lam looking forward to clashes with Wire and Saints after a challenging few weeks at the DW

Wigan Warriors head coach Adrian Lam believes that facing two of Super League’s high-flyers in quick succession could be just what his side need to get back to winning ways after three consecutive defeats.

Lam’s men welcome third-placed Warrington Wolves before travelling to take on second-placed St Helens at the Totally Wicked Stadium on Sunday evening.

Those two games come following defeats to Catalans Dragons, Hull Kingston Rovers and most recently Wakefield Trinity – losing three consecutive games for the first time since June 2018 and for the first time under the stewardship of Lam.

While the current Warriors boss acknowledges improvement is needed, he says that he’s excited about heading into a crucial segment of the campaign.

“We haven’t been great over the last couple of weeks. We had a great start to the season [winning the opening seven league matches], stumbled once at Catalans and seem to have lost a bit of confidence in the two weeks after that.

“It’s great timing with the Warrington game at home though, it’s due for us. We do lift to another level when we’re playing in these big games, and we’ve had a bit of success against Warrington in recent times. They’re playing some great rugby, so it’ll be a great test for us and I’m looking forward to the response to see how we turn up on Wednesday night. I’m excited about the big games ahead. It’s time that we stood up as a squad, and as a club, and performed well.

“It’s a really important period for us and we seem to be down on confidence at the moment. I saw some really strong efforts against Wakefield, which is great for us. Moving forward from there, hopefully we can get some players drip fed back in over the next couple of weeks and grow the confidence from there. We have to find a way to be able to score points, we haven’t done that in the last three weeks and it is a concern because you work hard to be able to execute in attack but we’re finding it hard at the moment.”

Even though Wigan have lost their last three, the club has had to deal with a seemingly ever-mounting number of players being unavailable for selection through injury, suspension, and international call-ups, as Lam referred it to as ‘drip-feeding the players back in’.

The situation meant that the Warriors boss had to name a youthful side at Wakefield, and while he praises their efforts, he admits times have been tough of late, providing an update on various players absent from his squad in the recent weeks.

“We’ve got a lot of players out, I think that we had 11 out last weekend, we were down to the bare bones, but that’s not an excuse. The young ones that have come in over the last couple of weeks have been great, they haven’t played outstandingly, but they certainly did a job as a team under duress, and that’s all that we can ask of them. It’s part of their development and their maturing.

“John Bateman is going to get scans on his ankle this week, we’re not sure exactly what it is, but there’s always the danger of that dreaded word ‘syndesmosis [a high-level ankle sprain involving ligament damage]. If that’s the case, then it could be four to six weeks before he’s back in action. Zak Hardaker is available now from suspension but has developed a problem in his neck which might keep him out for a little while.

“Liam Farrell and Jackson Hastings are back for selection this week though [having played for the Combined Nations All Stars]. Representative rugby is something that we’re very proud of here and we’re proud of the way those three [Farrell, Hastings and Bateman] performed the other night [against England]. We welcome them back with open arms, hopefully, Oliver Gildart too.”

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