Leeds Rhinos boss outlines 'added incentives & emotions' as Wakefield Trinity threaten shock repeat

The derby is Rhinos’ annual motor neurone disease awareness game and comes two days before the first anniversary of club legend Rob Burrow’s death from the illness. In addition, Mikolaj Oledzki and Sam Lisone will both be playing their 200th career game, Rhinos are aiming to regain third place in Betfred Super League - with Trinity just two points adrift - and the 14-12 home loss to Wakefield in round one is still fresh in their minds.

“Every game is a big one, but each week there’s added incentives and emotions,” Arthur – who has named close to a full-strength squad – insisted. “There’s plenty of reasons why we should get ourselves up for it.

“The thing we are focusing on is each week trying to improve our performances. We have a real performance focus at the moment and I feel like each week we are adding a bit more to it. We’ve still got a bit to go, but there’s some things we did really well last week that we want to get right this week so we go to that next level.”

Both teams are chasing a fourth successive win and Trinity, who were promoted from the Championship at the end of last season, are breathing down Rhinos’ necks on the league table. They proved their top-flight credentials in the opening game of the campaign and Arthur insisted: “They are better than they were in round one and so are we. I’d like to think both teams have improved since then.

“We have focused on our performances on a week-to-week basis, but I am sure it’s in the back of the boys’ minds how well they played against us. They will be up for it and they are playing with a good level of confidence.

“They have been competitive and they set the standard from that round one game. They showed everyone they are fair dinkum about the competition. They have been together a fair while, you can see that - they know each other’s game pretty well and they understand what the coach wants from them. They are going well.”

One of Trinity’s dangermen will be prop Caius Faatili, who has scored a brace of tries in each of Trinity’s past three games and recently signed a new long-term contract. “He has done a good job for them,” Arthur observed.

“He was probably a bit slow to get into it when he first arrived, but the more minutes he has been getting, he has been getting better. It’s just combinations, it takes time into a new team, but he has found his groove and what works for him in that team.”

Rhinos have an opportunity to end the first half of the campaign in third place and Arthur feels they are making progress, though he stressed they need to be sharper with ball in hand. “At times a bit of a lack of execution has let us down, but that will come with combinations,” he predicted.

“Brodie Croft and Jake Connor have had two 80-minute games together in a row, so that will help. In terms of what we are about and what we want to achieve, I think the team has got a real good understanding of who we want to be and they’ve shown we’ve got a team who want to try and do their best each week.

“We haven’t been at our best each week, but that’s more to do with execution, which is what we need to tidy up now. We’ve set some good standards and expectations, now can we get a bit better with our execution each week? We are moving in the right direction, but there’s still a long time to go and we’ve got a lot of hard work still to do.”