The Leopards travel to Craven Park on Friday night
Leigh Leopards head coach Adrian Lam.
Leigh Leopards could be without both Lachlan Lam and Josh Charnley this week when they go to Hull KR, Adrian Lam has confirmed.
Lam and Charnley both left Odsal on Saturday with nasty looking gashes on their knees and the pair have had to have 10 stitches each in order to close their wounds. Both lacerations were caused by the boots of other players, but five days on, the cuts are only just starting to heal up.
As such, while the head coach hasn’t ruled either of them out of the trip to Craven Park, he admits the smart move would be to leave them out of Friday’s clash.
However, Lam did confirm that Umyla Hanley and Tesi Niu are fit and expected to come back into the fold this week.
Hanley hasn’t played since the win over Hull FC last month, while Niu pulled out of the warm up ahead of the Hull KR clash the week before.
Both men are ready to start, which comes as a welcome boost to Lam, particularly given he could be without his star winger and captain.
“There’s two big gashes to Lachlan Lam’s knee and Josh Charnley’s leg, too,” Lam said. “They’re both potentially going to miss the game, more than likely.
“We’ll how they pull up overnight tonight but a chance of both players not playing. They’ve both had around 10 stitches in each kneecap and if they land on it, it will just pop back open.
“We have to make a decision on whether or not we risk that on a five day turnaround. Unfortunately it’s one of those ones where you get one in a few years and then you get two in one game.
“It was from the tags on the boots of other players so that’s something that we maybe have to look into but they were both cut open quite massively.
“Both players want to play but it’s just whether or not it’s the right thing to do. They could potentially get infected and bust back open. The smart thing to do on a five day turnaround would be not to risk that.
“Having said all of that, we should probably get Umyla Hanley and Tesi Niu back into the starting 13. There will probably be a little bit of a shuffle there, we’ll see how it unfolds but I’ll make that decision tomorrow morning before we head off to the Humber.”