Leeds Rhinos coach Brad Arthur on season so far, areas for improvement and big test v Huddersfield Giants

With a quarter of the regular campaign completed, Rhinos are second in Betfred Super League and travel to Huddersfield Giants tomorrow on the back of successive wins. They also have a fully fit squad and Arthur insisted: “We are building okay, especially the last two weeks.”

Reflecting on the opening seven rounds, he said: “I thought we started the season really well and jumped out of the blocks quickly in rounds two and three. We flattened out a little bit, our discipline for a game [away to Hull FC] was poor and our team identity, but hopefully that doesn’t happen again.

“I am pretty sure that was a one-off, but I think we responded pretty good on the back of that into playing Warrington who are one of the form teams in the competition. At the moment we are travelling okay - better than okay, we are going good - and we are healthy. We have still got a fair bit of improvement in us, which is great.”

Of where that improvement will come from, Arthur noted: “Choices around our team identity are really important to us. That will allow parts of our footy - the bits we’ve got to tidy up - to get better.

“Overall, there’s not a heap there we’ve got to tidy up. Our game mentality is good; our last-play options against Warrington weren’t great, but that was the conditions. We tidied them up against Bradford and were able to adapt [to the narrow pitch] on the run.

“We didn’t want to change too much of how we played, but the boys adapted well and showed a fair bit of patience when spaces weren’t opening up for us. I thought we handled that well.

“They are learning the different ways we need to win and that not every win and every half of footy looks the same. We are getting more comfortable with that.”

After an intense schedule over the first quarter of the campaign, including a trip to Las Vegas, Arthur feels last weekend’s unwanted break - because of the Challenge Cup quarter-finals - will prove valuable.

“We worked really hard last week,” he said. “We only had three days in, the days weren’t massively long, but we worked hard and got a lot of load into them. We trained really fast on one of the days and did a lot of team-mentality training, they had the weekend off and then they bounced in this week full of energy and ready to go.”

Giants are likely to present a much tougher challenge than they would a few weeks ago, having not lost since coach Luke Robinson was sacked last month. Interim-boss Liam Finn, who was one of Robinson’s assistants, oversaw wins against Wigan Warriors - then top of the table - and York Knights, but Arthur reckons the return of key players has been at the heart of Huddersfield’s revival.

“I don’t want to talk about coaches, because that’s a little bit unfair,” he said. “The new coach has done a great job and Robbo did a great job too. It is just unfortunate around injuries, they have got some players back on the field now and I think that makes a difference to performance - the depth of your squad.”

He added: “They are playing pretty free and open and with a bit of confidence. You can see what it does when you get a couple of players back into your team. They are back at home after two wins and they are going to be right in the contest and come after us.

“That’s what we want. It is a bit of a badge of honour for us that every team comes bringing their best game. That can only make us better.”