Castleford Tigers 6 Leeds Rhinos 29: Brad Arthur on going 3rd, 'professional' performance and spat with fan
Boss Brad Arthur insisted the table isn’t his priority after Leeds Rhinos climbed to third with a hard-fought 29-6 win at Castleford Tigers.
Leeds completed three successive victories for the first time this season and have now won five of their last six games in Betfred Super League. But in his post-match press conference Arthur stressed: “We are chasing just being a bit better each week and getting our combinations right; where we sit on the table is nice, but not what my priority is right now.”
He said: “That performance, that professionalism, can we do that again next week? That’s what we need to be chasing, more so than the two points. If we chase those sorts of performances, the win column takes care of itself. We are not at [the top-two’s] level yet, but that’s where we are aiming to get to. Time will tell [if they can do that].”
Arthur described Rhinos’ performance as “pretty professional”, adding: “We made limited errors, played good field position - we talked about just making sure we got to the end of the tackle count and that’s where our points would come. The players need to understand we don’t need to be winning on the scoreboard 10 minutes into the game - it doesn’t matter. We need to build our games and then come out in the second half and build again.”
Leeds led 7-0 at half-time, but a missed tackle by Brodie Croft led to Tigers scoring within a minute of the resumption. Though he admitted that was “frustrating”, Arthur stressed: “Everyone’s chasing that perfect 80 minutes and you are never going to get it. Our response was good, we just had to start again. It was a one-off, usually Crofty is a very good defender. He got it wrong, he will learn from it.”
There was one change to Leeds’ 17, with Cooper Jenkins returning in place of James Bentley. The coach confirmed: “Bentos will be back in next week, so somebody else will have to miss out. That’s the luxury we’ve got at the moment.”
Arthur was also quick to praise Tigers for their effort, describing them as “brave”. “They really had a crack in the first half and I think weight of possession and the amount of work they had to do took its toll on them,” he reflected. “That’s credit to our guys for being patient and professional to play like that. They didn’t roll over and gift us the game, we had to work hard for it.”
It was Arthur’s first time coaching Rhinos at the Jungle and he exchanged words with a Castleford fan as he left his position in the main stand after the game. “That was interesting,” he said. “He was challenging me around some of our tactics, but that’s part of it - I suppose I’ve got to get used to it. I enjoyed it, it was good - I just told him to relax.”
Of the derby atmosphere, he added: “It was great. This is the bit I have really enjoyed since I have been over here, lots of different experiences. You can see the support Cas have got and I was really happy we had a good contingent of fans behind us to help us. The only way we are going to continue to get those guys wanting to travel away to watch us play is if we play like we did today.”