Leeds Rhinos coach Brad Arthur hails Fergus McCormack and Chris Hankinson praises urgency, gives injury update

McCormack, 20, was called up for his first senior start in place of the suspended Lachie Miller and had a hand in two of Rhinos’ nine tries. “He did a good job,” Arthur said. “Early in the first half he did a lot of running around, I reckon he covered 10ks in the first half doing a lot of work he didn’t need to do - a couple of carries early in sets on set starts, but he got into the swing of it and he was good.

“He’s only a kid and the only way they get experience is by putting them out there. I am really grateful to the team that they did a job for him and made his life as easy as could be by doing their jobs.”

McCormack’s pass put Chris Hankinson over in the final moments, capping a strong 80-minute performance by the number 14 who started in the second-row and switched to centre when Ash Handley went off after the break. The Wigan-based veteran who had a nightmare journey to the ground after getting caught in motorway delays which forced kick-off to be put back 15 minutes to 8.15pm.

Arthur said: Chank [Hankinson] has done a tremendous job, each week he keeps getting better and better. He and Macca [James McDonnell] were outstanding. He got here at about 7.45pm, he was in the traffic for three or four hours and he played well again. He is doing a good job for us.”

Friday’s win lifted Rhinos back into top spot on the table, though St Helens will regain pole position if they win at Castleford Tigers today (Saturday). Of Leeds’ performance, Arthur said: “I was happy with the desperation and urgency defensively on the tryline. We wanted to have a big focus on really owning and dominating field position and we probably didn’t do that as well as I would’ve liked, especially in the first half. I think we gave them 16 or 17 play-the-balls inside our 20, but the pleasing thing now is that our urgency was good.

Rhinos raced into an early 12-0 lead and Arthur added: “Our start was nice and controlled, we were happy to build. I know we scored two tries in that bit, but they came through patience and building. We dominated the game pretty well around the possession through our physicality.

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After being unhappy with Rhinos’ defence in the 56-22 win at Giants last month, Arthur was delighted with a first clean sheet of the campaign, but stressed that wasn’t spoken about at half time.

“He added: “We talked about keeping the concentration and keeping that urgency and desperation. We didn’t talk about the nil, just concentration in defence - no knocks off or concentration lapses.”

Rhinos came through the game with no major new injury concerns. Of Handley, Arthur said: “He wanted to stay on. He’s captain and he wants to be out there right at the death, but we have got plenty of flexibility in this team, I have got the luxury of being able to move blokes around and they can all fill a role.

"In terms of load, James McDonnell has played plenty of minutes and it was good to give him a rest and I was able to sit Kallum [Watkins] on the bench for 55 minutes before we brought him on. I was just making sure we were sharing the workload because it’s going to be a big, long season and we need to be firing all year round, especially when we get to the end.”