Leeds Rhinos coach Brad Arthur provides Jake Connor injury update after superb 34-8 win v Hull KR

The reigning Man of Steel scored a try, was involved in Leeds’ other four and kicked seven goals from as many attempts, but went off after treatment on the field for a knock inside the final 10 minutes. Speaking in his post-match press conference, Arthur quashed fears of a serious injury, joking Connor “wanted an early bath”. “He got whacked a little bit, he was fine” the coach stated.

Arthur admitted Leeds picked up several “bumps and bruises”, but there were no other major injury concerns and he saluted a “brave” performance in Rhinos’ annual motor neurone disease awareness fixture, which was a tribute to the late club legend Rob Burrow. “We spoke earlier in the week about being brave for Rob and his family and I thought we were extremely brave tonight,” he said.

“In collision, we really dominated. They got stuck into us and we withstood it and pushed through the other side. We did a couple of dumb things here and there, but it makes us exciting to watch and hard to defend against so I have to live with a little bit of it.”

Rhinos’ fifth successive win left them two points clear at the top of Betfred Super League with 11 of the 27 rounds remaining in the regular season. Arthur insisted “I still think there's plenty left to improve and that was a bit of the discussion at the end of the game, but we've got to be happy with a nice strong win against a very good team.”