Lam had a fertile career with 14 State of Origin football matches for Queensland, including a man-of-the-match performance in the third game of the 1995 series. He made his Test début for Papua New Guinea in 1994 and went on to win 11 caps, scoring 3 tries and kicking 1 field goal. In 1996, he captained the 'Papua New GuineaNational Rugby League Team' against Australia. In 1997, he captained the 'Rest of the World' team against Australia. He captained the Kumuls to the quarter finals in the 2000 Rugby League World Cup. He played at halfback for the Sydney Roosters in their 2000 NRL Grand Final defeat by the Brisbane Broncos. He played a total of 146 club games for the Sydney Roosters, scoring 42 tries and kicking 6 field goals, as well as 119 first team games for Wigan Warriors, scoring 44 tries, kicking 1 goal and 10 field goals, including a try in their 2001 Super League Grand Final defeat by the Bradford Bulls. 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 had signed with Super League.
Coaching career
Lam became coach of Papua New Guinea Kumuls national rugby league team in 2007, and was in charge for their 2008 Rugby League World Cup campaign. He quit as Kumuls' coach in 2009 after a dispute with the Papua New Guinea Rugby Football League. In June 2007 he was appointed inaugural coach of the new QRLWizard Queensland CupNorthern Pride team based in Cairns. However, three months later he was offered the position of assistant coach at the NRL Sydney Roosters under their new coach Brad Fittler. Lam was released and he left Cairns for Sydney before the Pride's first game. In 2009 he moved to the St. George Illawarra Dragons as assistant coach under Wayne Bennett. Lam became the coach of the St George-Illawarra Dragons Under 20s team in 2010 and 2011. He returned as coach of Papua New Guinea in 2012. Lam returned to Wigan Warriors in 2019 as interim Head Coach and later in 2019 made his spell as Wigan coach full time as he signed for another year after Shaun Edwards opted not to join Wigan for 2020.
Personal life
In 2010 a court ordered former State of Origin teammate Dale Shearer to repay approximately $1.5m to Lam for an outstanding loan which dated back to 2005. His son, Lachlan Lam, is also a Papua New Guinea international.
