Leeds Rhinos coach says 'it's what we needed' after tough Challenge Cup battle at Widnes Vikings

Rhinos are in Monday’s fourth round draw thanks to a 25-12 win at Championship outfit Widnes Vikings, but they had to work hard for it and Arthur insisted that is exactly what was needed. Widnes were only six points behind in the final quarter before Leeds, who had 10 senior players rested or on the casualty list closed the game out.

The coach stressed a tough match was ideal preparation for the Betfred Super League opener at Leigh Centurions six days later. He said: “I’ll give a fair bit of credit to the opposition, they came to play and had a crack and made us work for it, which was good. It was exactly what we needed, a hit out like that.

“We showed plenty of resilience on our tryline; they broke our line twice off kicks and we could have solved at least one of them, but we had a whole left-edge that wasn’t present, we had Ethan [O'Neill] in the halves and George Brown at full-back.

“I was a bit disappointed in the first half with a couple of red zone errors on tackle one, which gifted them field position, but really impressed that we had to work hard for that and build a bit of resilience. I feel like it helps us get more match-hardened and ready for next week.”

Rhinos led 18-6 at half-time and looked ready to run away with the game, but Widnes scored the next try to set fans’ nerves jangling. Arthur, however, said he wasn’t worried about a potential shock. He added: “Not really, I was watching more the reaction of our guys and we showed a good level of composure.

“Maybe six months ago we would have got frustrated and tried to come up with trick plays and all the things we’ve probably been guilty of in the past, but we just kept at it. I liked the fact we had to defend three or four sets on our line at the back end when it was 18-12 and we had to show a real level of resilience there.”