Why Wigan Warriors may have "clunky parts" in attack

The Warriors boss was disappointed with their display in the 16-12 loss at Castleford and is hoping for a big response from his players against Toronto tonight.

Yet while he is confident they have enough in their arsenal to claim the two points, Lam is a realist and doesn’t expect the attack to be firing on all-cylinders until the new combinations have bedded in.

He pointed out that in their opening game, the first-half injury to hooker Sam Powell forced him to shift his playmakers around.

Powell’s absence meant two more were introduced for the game at Cas’, with Harry Smith paired with Jackson Hastings in the halves and Jake Shorrocks bench-hooker.

And with the latter suffering a calf strain, young Amir Bourouh will provide back-up to Thomas Leuluai at dummy-half tonight - with Powell expected to return next week.

With Hastings still settling in at the club and Bevan French adjusting to his new full-back role, Lam says they need to be patient.

“It would have been easy to go into the dressing room at Castleford and lose our top,” he said.

“But we had a different spine to the week before and even in that first game, Powell went off, Lockers went to halfback, so we’ve not had the fluency there that we’d like.

“And until we get that spine solidified you will get clunky parts.”

Lam, though, did not cut the players any slack over some of the errors and penalties which littered their display in West Yorkshire last Friday.

“We played poorly at times and I’ll take responsibility for that. We were ill-disciplined,” said Lam.

“We were four points short, which is pretty tight considering the lack of ball we had, and I’m looking forward to seeing us respond.

“It was embarrassing at times. We’ve not had much time to fix it but it was a mentality issue we needed to address, and we’ve got a chance to do that this week.”

Kick-off tonight is 7.45pm. The Warriors' fanzone will again be open at Robin Park before and after the match.