Huddersfield Giants v Leeds Rhinos: Brad Arthur stresses good habits, reveals key areas for improvement
The plan works, but we have to be better under pressure. That’s coach Brad Arthur’s message to his Leeds Rhinos players ahead of their crucial game at Huddersfield Giants.
Arthur was in charge for the first time when Leeds lost 20-12 to Hull KR at AMT Headingley last Saturday, after leading 6-0 at the break and 12-10 after 70 minutes. The new coach saw “real positive signs from the team”, particularly at the start of the game, but admitted they need to be better when Giants turn the screw tonight (Thursday).
“When we started to get a little bit tired and fatigued and under a bit of pressure, I saw us revert back to some habits we are trying to remove,” Arthur said of what Rhinos need to improve from last week.
“Those habits are going to take a while to break. This week we want to be able to try and push through longer periods under pressure and try and embed those good habits we started to get around our markers and our movement in defence.
“With six minutes to go we lost a bit of detail; we kicked the ball dead, we didn’t get to dummy-half, we took a show at marker and dropped a bomb - all in the space of six minutes. That’s just some real simple detail around our game.”
Of how to improve those failings, Arthur said: “We’ve had a short turnaround this week so it has been hard, but we’ve just got to keep pushing it, making it important and holding blokes accountable. They saw when they stuck to what they were supposed to do and the plan, it worked for long periods. But if you want to win games and beat the better teams you need to do it when you are under pressure the most and under fatigue the most.
“That’s just a concentration thing; not getting to dummy-half, we did that twice. You can’t train for that, it’s just simple concentration. It’s not a training issue, it comes down to individuals staying in the game, staying in the moment and playing each tackle at a time.”
With Rhinos sitting seventh in Betfred Super League, four points outside the play-offs, defeat tonight would be a potentially fatal blow to their top-six hopes. There could be only one change to last week’s side and Arthur stressed: “We haven’t talked about it being a must-win, but I am sure everyone knows it’s important we get the two points.
“We need points to bridge that gap, but what we’ve talked about is the stuff we did well [last week], doing that for the full 80 minutes. That has got to be the bare minimum standard and we’ve got to grow on that. Then the areas we got wrong under pressure, the simple detail, we’re not going to get all of that right, but there has got to be less of it.”
Though tonight is one of only three games left against teams below Leeds in the table, Arthur reckons the tough run-in could be an advantage and he sees the away fixture as a “test of character”. He said: “I know we’ve got to play a lot of teams who are above us. We probably need to play those teams to take points off them. If we can win those games it works in our favour and if we can’t beat them over the next nine weeks, there’s no point getting there [the play-offs] anyway.
“We’ve got five away games and I reckon away games are a test of character. At home everything’s in your favour and you’re nice and comfortable. We are out of our comfort zone this week and I want to see what sort of character we’ve got.”
Like Leeds, Giants - who are ninth, four points behind Rhinos - have had a recent change of coach with Luke Robinson replacing Ian Watson on an interim basis. They did Rhinos a favour with a shock home win over sixth-placed Salford Red Devils last week and Arthur noted: “They are a tidy team, they just graft.
“They try and play the long game and drag you into a real fighting contest and probably hope you beat yourself. I think maybe that’s what we did last week, beat ourselves.”