Leeds Rhinos' Alfie Edgell talks return to the side, more to come from Riley Lumb and hard lessons learned
Leeds Rhinos’ Alfie Edgell is grateful for his first team chance and says the player he replaced, Riley Lumb, will bounce back to play a big part this season.
Edgell has featured in Rhinos’ last three games after being called up in place of Lumb, who made 17 successive appearances from the start of the campaign. After scoring six tries in 16 matches last year, a fractured jaw suffered in training just before Christmas disrupted Edgell’s build-up to the new campaign and fellow 20-year-old Lumb got the first opportunity to fill the wing vacancy left by Maika Sivo’s long-term knee injury.
Lumb is Rhinos leading try scorer with 11 so it was a big call by coach Brad Arthur to leave him out and Edgell is determined to make the most of the opportunity. He said: “It is what I’ve been wanting since we began pre-season in November. It has been a bit of a tough season so far, I had that big injury at the start and little injuries throughout and I never really got a run of reserves games.
“I came in for the Leigh game and started training on the wing. I had been running at full-back all pre-season and in-season. I think the prolonged period I’ve been playing has really helped me and I hope it continues.”
Of Lumb, Edgell said: “Riley has had a great part to play so far this season and I am sure he will further down the line. We are really good mates, we get on really well and we are pushing each other to get better. We are both training well so I am sure you’ll see more of both of us this year.”
Rhinos are top of the reserves and academy tables, with many of the same players featuring in both sides. Thirteen Rhinos under-18s have been named in Yorkshire’s squad for the second Academy Origin game and Edgell reckons the depth of young talent at Leeds is impressive.
“Massive credit to [transition coach] Chev Walker,” he said. “He’s working full-time through the day and with the academy in the evening and he is getting the best out of both teams. I think you can see right through the system, everyone follows similar traits and it is working for us.”
Both players are in Rhinos’ initial 21-man squad for Friday’s home game against Betfred Super League’s bottom club Salford Red Devils. Rhinos are on the back of a 6-0 loss to St Helens and Edgell admitted: “We said after the big win at Hull KR we had to back it up otherwise it meant nothing, so it is tough to take that loss. We will look at where we went wrong and try to put it right this week, but I think we have got ourselves to blame.
“It has been like that in the majority of our losses this year, with errors and penalties. I think we can cut that out, but Saints have done that to us twice in a row now so it’s something we will be looking to put right if we play them later down the line. It was tough and it hurt, but I think in the long run it will serve us well as a team.”