Leeds Rhinos captain Ash Handley talks Magic moments, room for improvement and tough trip to France

Handley and Maika Sivo’s devastating left-side partnership has been at the heart of Rhinos’ rise to top spot in Betfred Super League and their closeness was illustrated during the 50-16 Magic Weekend win against Bradford Bulls. Handley was on a hat-trick late in the game when he found himself in space near the opposition’s line, but passed to his winger instead of scoring himself.

That enabled Sivo to touch down for a 10th successive Super League game, setting a new club record. Handley went on to get a third score on the final play of the match, but Sivo’s achievement gave him more satisfaction.

“I just want to keep getting him tries,” Handley explained. “How cool is it for him to break the record and to be part of that for somebody? I just want to get him as many as I can. I think it’s my job to get him tries. I probably could have scored myself, but I’d already scored two, so he can have it.”

Handley, a former winger, added: “I get a lot of joy from putting him away, quick hands and stuff like that. That’s probably the part of the game I enjoy the most and I always want to work on that. If I can get him in space he is devastating one on one so I try to get him the ball as much as I can.”

Handley’s hat-trick and Sivo’s record were Magic Weekend highlights for Leeds, whose sixth successive win lifted them four points clear of second place. It wasn’t, though, their best performance and they allowed Bulls back into the game for a spell after half-time when they conceded back-to-back tries.

“We’ve spoken about that,” Handley admitted. “We were a bit off in terms of execution and when we get a few tries up, concentration is dropping. We have been working on that and it’s one we need to have a look at through the week.

“Every game is tough and if you take your foot off the gas teams can hurt you. If you are making errors they can build a bit of pressure on you so we just need to get across that. We weren’t happy with some of the tries we conceded as well, so we need to fix that up.”

But the skipper added: “We aren’t 100 per cent happy with the performance, but we put 50 points on a team, so it does show how far we’ve come and it gives us something to work on throughout the week again.”

Next year’s Magic has been confirmed for May 1 and 2 - a Bank Holiday weekend - and Handley is already looking forward to going back to Hill Dickinson Stadium. “I love Magic Weekend,” he said.

“It’s a great experience and what a stadium - I’d never been there before, it’s a brilliant stadium so it was a really good day. Playing somewhere like that gives it a good atmosphere and it was a big crowd. We get good crowds at Headingley obviously, but it is a massive atmosphere [at Hill Dickinson]. The stadium feels quite on top of you, so it’s good.”

More immediately, Rhinos face a tricky game at Catalans Dragons on Saturday. They haven’t scored in Perpignan since 2022 - a run of three successive whitewashes - and the French side will be fired up after a 60-18 drubbing by Toulouse Olympique last Saturday.

“It is a tough place to go,” Handley said. “We have got a point to prove and that’s pretty good for us - you need to have a reason why every week. We need to be better in our away performances so it’s a good test for us.”