Leeds Rhinos' 'bounce back' plan outlined as rising star predicts tough York Knights challenge

Rhinos’ suffered a 26-14 defeat at Leigh Leopards in Betfred Super League round one last week and face a tricky challenge against a York Knights team on a high after stunning treble-winners Hull KR in their top-flight debut. Leeds were without nine players, including five of their top-13, against Leigh and several of those could be back for the game in two days’ time.

Cassell reckons young players who have had a taste of first team action at the start of the campaign will benefit from the experience and stressed it is too early to read anything into last week’s result. “It was disappointing, but it only being early doors, round one, I don’t think we can dwell on it too much,” the 19-year-old forward said.

“We’ve got a lot of injuries at the minute and lads playing out of position and having to step up, which is awkward. You want your full squad and you want everyone fit, but credit to everyone that’s stepped up - young lads like George Brown, Tom Nicholson-Watton, Ben Littlewood, even myself. It is only early; we won’t dwell on it, we’ll put it behind us and go into this week with a clean slate.”

Friday’s game is the first between Leeds and York since a Challenge Cup tie at Headingley in February, 1995. The most recent league meeting was almost 40 years ago, in April, 1986. Knights topped last year’s Betfred Championship table, though they lost to Toulouse Olympique in the Grand Final and their debut in Super League went with a bang when they hit back from 18-6 down to beat the Robins 19-18 last Thursday.

Rhinos fly to Las Vegas on Monday ahead of their clash with Hull KR there five days later, but Cassell stressed they won’t be thinking about that until after the match against York. “Every game this year is going to be tough, home or away,” he predicted. “There’s no easy games in Super League, at all. The mentality Brad [Arthur, Rhinos’ coach] has put into us is we’ll take each game as it comes, one week at a time. We won’t look any further than [Friday]. We want to get through this week healthy, no injuries and bounce back with a strong performance.”

Cassell made his first team debut last summer and was promoted into the number 20 jersey during pre-season. He was a starting second-rower in Rhinos’ Challenge Cup win at Widnes Vikings two weeks ago and among the substitutes at Leigh, when he played for only 23 minutes in one spell.

That was a setback, but he insisted: “As the games go on I’ll only get more confident. I am happy where I am and everyone wants to bounce back and go again this week. I want to be pushing the older lads for a spot and I want to be doing enough week-in, week-out to earn my spot.”