'Hard and smarter': coach reveals why Leeds Rhinos are 'better prepared' for big Super League start
Leeds Rhinos have trained “hard and smarter” in pre-season this year, coach Brad Arthur says.
Rhinos were fourth in the 2025 Betfred Super League table - their best finish since 2017 - and Arthur feels they are in better shape now than 12 months ago. Reflecting on pre-season, which began in November, Arthur said: “It has been enjoyable. It is my second pre-season and it has been different to the first, which was about a lot of mentality training and mileage and getting some run into their legs, doing a bit of resilience and increasing their training loads.
“There was a lot of what I call dumb running, running without having to concentrate and think. This year we have still trained hard, but we’ve trained a bit smarter. We’ve done a lot more training with the ball, we’ve been able to train at higher intensity - quicker transitions - and train a lot faster.
“Last pre-season was a lot about getting systems in place; it was a bit of stop-start and there was a lot of running, whereas this year we’ve been able to integrate it a lot more because they are across the systems and understand how we want to play and what we want to do and they are clear on the expectations.”
Being better at key times has been a top priority. Arthur explained: “A focus for us, on the back of last season and where we got it wrong, was some decision-making in big moments and big occasions. We’ve been able to put them in [similar] scenarios.
“We might only have three defenders from the posts and we couldn’t nail those opportunities. People say ‘how didn’t they score from that’? We’ve done a bit of practice at that and also done a fair bit of practice on being able to defend those too - when we are down to three or four defenders, how do you solve it? We’ve put them under a lot of pressure physically, then to go into some decision-making.”
Leeds play Bradford Bulls in Cameron Smith’s testimonial game on Saturday and begin their competitive campaign with a Challenge Cup third round tie at either Thatto Heath Crusaders or Widnes Vikings two weeks later. Their Super League opener is away to Leigh Leopards on Friday, February 13 and Arthur insisted he’ll be “disappointed if we’re not” better prepared than in 2025.
He said: “We should be in a better place; it looks like that from our training, but we’ve got to go and actually transfer it to the field now. That’s always the challenge, but I am a lot more comfortable; I have not done less coaching, but I’ve been able to sit back and let the systems do a lot more and also let the players drive it. At the end of the day, they are the ones out on the field and they have to solve problems.”
Of what his men could accomplish this year, the coach added: “I feel like we showed our potential last season and what we can actually do and achieve, but we haven’t proved anything yet. We have got a fair bit of work to do, but we’ve shown we’ve got the ability and the squad. They’ve shown they can get a lot of things right, but also a few things wrong. The potential is there, there’s plenty of desire and want, but we haven’t proved anything yet.”