Adrian Lam hits back at comments... and provides Bevan French update

Adrian Lam admits he has been irritated by comments about Wigan's discipline from their opening two rounds – from which NONE of his players have been charged.

Last Thursday night, Wakefield coach Chris Chester predicted Warriors forward Willie Isa would face a ban for a high tackle which forced winger Tom Johnstone to leave the action.

And the week earlier, Sky Sports highlighted a challenge from Thomas Leuluai against Leigh, with pundit Barrie McDermott saying the Kiwi half was “better than that”.

In both instances, the RFL’s match review panel scrutinised the footage and didn’t issue any charges – or even cautions.

And Lam admits he would prefer discussions to happen after the disciplinary process had taken place.

“There has been a bit of pressure from outside on a couple of incidents,” he said.

“I don’t do that to other players and other coaches, I don’t think it’s the place for that. There’s a system in place to do that.

"It annoys me quite a fair bit.”

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Chester had said: “We lose a player off the back of foul play... I’m not sure how that’s not been picked up when we have plenty of guys watching the game in the stand. But somebody will benefit from it next week.”

The RFL’s MRP reviews all matches the Monday after each round, and then issues charges – and relevant suspensions – with the more serious offenders facing the following day’s disciplinary.

“It does annoy me a little bit, but it takes the focus off the loss (for Wakefield) though, so there’s the other angle,” added Lam.

The Wigan coach will today name his 21-man squad for Friday’s Challenge Cup tie at York, suggesting he will stick with the same provisional panel as last week.

But he may make “one or two” changes to his matchday squad.

Tony Clubb, Mitch Clark and youngsters James O’Donnell and Sam Halsall have missed out for the past two weeks.

“There may be one or two but again, it’s round three of the competition, we’ve a tough draw coming up after this so we need to get everything right,” he said.

“You want to get some players runs, and I want to give York the respect. So we’ll decide if there are one or two changes.”

Australian Bevan French trained yesterday with his team-mates for the first time since completing a quarantine period.

Lam said there was “no chance” of him playing yet, but added: “He’s okay, he needs a couple more weeks training with the group to get up to speed, so we’re going to be patient and make sure we do that properly.”