Boss Brad Arthur isn’t worried about Leeds Rhinos’ home form and has confirmed they will stick with an unchanged backline for next week’s play-off semi-final.

Rhinos won their opening 10 home games in the regular season, but lost the last three to Leigh Leopards, Wigan Warriors and Hull FC. They will be back at AMT Headingley next Friday against either Warrington Wolves, Wakefield Trinity or Leigh, with a place in the following weekend’s Grand Final at stake.

Rhinos finished the weekly rounds as the competition’s leading scorers, but managed only five tries during their trio of losses at AMT Headingley. However, they dominated field position against both Leigh and Hull and Arthur reckons they will be much sharper in the semi-final.

“I think most teams, if you said at the start of the year they’d win 10 of 13 home games, they’d be pretty happy with it,” Arthur stated. “That’s how I’m looking at it.

Leeds Rhinos coach Brad Arthur seen in front of a poster of star winger Maika Sivo during his week's Dream Team presentation and play-off launch at Old Trafford. Picture by Olly Hassell/SWpix.com.

placeholder image — Leeds Rhinos coach Brad Arthur seen in front of a poster of star winger Maika Sivo during his week's Dream Team presentation and play-off launch at Old Trafford. Picture by Olly Hassell/SWpix.com.

“I’d be concerned if we didn’t get a look or didn’t create chances, but we just didn’t nail a couple of passes. You know what happens, you score one or two and then you score three or four.

“Every time we didn’t score, it gave them more belief to scramble and work harder. Give credit to Hull FC, they did that - they scrambled hard. We’ve looked at it and our error rate was high, but every one of those was probably a catch or pass away from a try.

“That was the difference, we had been nailing them and getting them right. It was probably just a good wake-up call for us around making sure everyone focuses on their jobs individually, to get their skill right.”

Leeds Rhinos captain Ash Handley at Old Trafford with the Super League trophy he hopes to get his hands on in two weeks' time. Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com.

The defeat by Hull was Ash Handley’s first at full-back in place of Lachie Miller, who suffered a season-ending hamstring injury against Wigan. Handley has played centre for the past two seasons, but Arthur felt he went well in his new role.

“We’re sticking with that,” the team boss confirmed. “I thought Ash did a really good job at full-back. He ran for 300 metres; he got a couple of skill things wrong, but they would be the same if he was in the centres.

“Birdy [Jack Bird] made a line break right at the end of the game and didn’t find the pass; Harry [Newman] got a flick pass to Ryan [Hall] that was knocked down - there were quite a few opportunities we created, so I’m not really concerned about the combinations.”

Though he doesn’t believe Rhinos are tired, physically or mentally, Arthur stressed Rhinos will benefit from this weekend’s bye. “We’ve worked hard and every team in the competition would prefer to be in the position ourselves and Wigan are in,” he said.

Jack Bird narrowly fails to score for Leeds Rhinos against Hull FC. Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com.

“We get 14 days to prepare. The four other teams will go at it pretty hard this week and we can sit back and we’ve got a good time to recover and also prepare for our next game.

“We’ve got to make sure we make the right use of it. We’ve got five or six sessions and we’ve got to be careful not to over-train. We’ll keep it simple and make sure we nail the execution and turn opportunities into points.”