Adrian Lam
Encyclopedia
Adrian Lam is an Australian rugby league football coach and former international player. He is the head coach of the under 20 St George Dragons squad National Rugby League
National Rugby League
The National Rugby League is the top league of professional rugby league football clubs in Australasia. The NRL's main competition, called the Telstra Premiership , is contested by sixteen teams, fifteen of which are based in Australia with one based in New Zealand...

 (NRL) team he signed with them in 2010 and will combine with coaching legend Wayne Bennett.He is a former Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...

 rugby league football player. Lam moved from Papua New Guinea to Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...

 in the Australian state of Queensland at the age of 7 where he was raised.

Playing

Lam had a fertile career with 14 State of Origin
Rugby League State of Origin
State of Origin is an annual best of three series of rugby league football matches contested by the Maroons and the Blues, who represent the Australian states of Queensland and New South Wales respectively...

 football matches for the Queensland side, including a man-of-the-match performance in the third game of the 1995 series. He played 146 club games for the Sydney Roosters
Sydney Roosters
The Sydney Roosters are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. The club competes in the National Rugby League and is one of the oldest and most successful clubs in Australian rugby league history, having won twelve New South Wales Rugby League...

, scoring 42 tries and kicking 6 field goals as well as 119 first team games for Wigan Warriors
Wigan Warriors
Wigan Warriors is an English rugby league club based in Wigan, Greater Manchester. The club's first team squad competes in the engage Super League and the team are the current Challenge Cup holders as of the 27th August 2011....

, scoring 44 tries, kicking 1 goal and 10 field goals.

He made his debut for the Papua New Guinea national side
Papua New Guinea national rugby league team
The Papua New Guinea national rugby league team represents Papua New Guinea internationally in the sport of rugby league football.In Papua New Guinea, Rugby league is highly popular and is regarded as the country’s national sport. The national side are known as the Kumuls...

 in 1994 and went on to win 12 test football caps scoring 3 tries and kicking 1 field goal. He captained the Kumuls to the quarter finals in the 2000 Rugby League World Cup
2000 Rugby League World Cup
The 2000 Rugby League World Cup was the twelfth staging of the Rugby League World Cup and was held during October and November of that year in Great Britain, Ireland and France...

 he also played 1 match for rest of the world VS Australia.

Lam is one of only a few players to have played State of Origin for Queensland and for a country other than Australia. He is also the only player to be captain of a Queensland side and captain of a national team other than Australia. The reason he was allowed to do this was that due to the Super League war, Queensland were in need of a half-back due to the fact regular half-back Allan Langer
Allan Langer
Allan "Alfie" Langer AM is an Australian former multi-award-winning rugby league footballer of the 1980s, 90s and 2000s who works as an assistant coach for the Australian national team and Brisbane Broncos...

 had signed with Super League. Although this decision was not popular with many, Lam has always believed himself to be more of a Queenslander than Papua New Guinea in everything but birth right.

He has named his Papua New Guinea training squad for the 2008 Rugby League World Cup
2008 Rugby League World Cup
The 2008 Rugby League World Cup was the thirteenth staging of the Rugby League World Cup since the inauguration of the tournament in 1954, and the first since the 2000 event...

.

Coaching

Lam was the coach of the Papua New Guinea national rugby league team until he quit in 2010. In 2009 he started an appointment as assistant coach under Wayne Bennett at the St. George Illawarra Dragons.

Lam became the coach of the Dragons Under 20's team in 2010 and 2011.

Personal Life

In 2010 a court ordered former State of Origin teammate Dale Shearer
Dale Shearer
Dale Shearer is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer of the 1980s and 90s. A Queensland State of Origin and Australian international representative winger/fullback of Aboriginal heritage, he played club football in Queensland, New South Wales and England...

 to repay approximately $1.5m to Lam for an outstanding loan which dated back to 2005.

External links

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