Leeds Rhinos coach Brad Arthur assesses season so far, reveals tricky 'juggling act' & hails improving rookie
With a quarter of the season completed, boss Brad Arthur has revealed a cautiously positive assessment of Leeds Rhinos’ campaign so far.
Betfred Super League round eight began with Rhinos - who meet winless Huddersfield Giants at AMT Headingley on Friday - in sixth place on the table after four victories and three defeats, an identical record to the same stage last year. “There’s lots of good there,” Arthur said of how his side have performed up to now. “I reckon we’ve been consistent with the good and the things we need to improve, we have been consistent with that too.”
Leeds are on the back of a 28-0 win at Salford Red Devils last Thursday and Arthur admitted: “Our attack at times has looked a bit clunky and disjointed and I’ve talked a lot about chasing the scoreboard. I still feel like we are learning how to win and what winning looks like.
“We are building games really nicely and we’ve put ourselves in a position in all those games to win them, but it’s taking that next step around how do we win and what’s our response to big moments in the game, whether they be good or bad? I think we showed a good sign last weekend around our better responses and we only made four errors in that game. I know we had times where we looked a little bit disjointed in attack, but we didn’t lose our heads and we stayed in control and kept trying to improve and get our execution right.”
Leeds have conceded 81 points in league matches, an average of 11.5 per game and that has been the most pleasing aspect for Arthur. “I am really happy with that,” he said. We got shown up early in the season against Wakefield in a period of 10 minutes on a couple of shifts there, but Riley Lumb is still learning his role.
“He is a young guy and he is going to have good days and a couple of days when he might not get it right, but his progression has been part of that. He is getting tested a lot, but he is getting better each week with an understanding of his role and his decision making.”
Lumb, 20, had made only four senior appearances before this season, but has played in all nine competitive games so far, scoring six tries. The rookie winger wasn’t expected to be a regular in the team this year, but got his chance at short notice after Maika Sivo suffered a long-term knee injury in January.
“The only way they get experience is through opportunities like this,” Arthur noted. “We can do all the training we want, but it’s not the same as getting experience in a game. He is getting back to back weeks and getting bashed around and getting his body ready to go again and keeping his head focused. It is a real challenge for him, he is only young, but he has got good help around him, with Ash [Handley]. He couldn’t ask for a better person to have alongside him because he is nice and calm and he talks to him really well.”
Leeds have struggled to score points at times this term, including at Salford, but Arthur reckons training this week was “probably the best we’ve looked with our attack”. He said: “To be fair to the players, I haven’t given them a lot of time with the ball - it has been mainly defence-focused.
“If we are going to switch our focus a bit more to what we do with the ball, we can’t afford to lose those efforts in defence. It is a real juggling act and we’ve got to make sure we still have that grit we’ve been playing with defensively. We will get a few things wrong on Friday, it’s how we respond to them, but I am hoping we might seem more fluent with the ball.”