Leeds Rhinos 'good to go' for St Helens play-off: key men set to return after loss at Wigan Warriors
Coach Brad Arthur declared Leeds Rhinos “good to go” for the play-offs after a below-strength team were beaten 22-6 at Wigan Warriors in the final round of the regular season.
Rhinos finished fourth in Betfred Super League - their highest placing since 2017 - and will take on St Helens at AMT Headingley in an elimination tie next Saturday. Arthur confirmed Leeds got through the game at Wigan with no major injury concerns and will be close to full-strength against Saints.
Speaking in his post-match press conference, he said: “As long as no one trips over getting on the bus, we are getting out of here injury-free and we get four back next week. We are good to go, come the weekend - barring Maika [Sivo] and Cameron Smith - we should be close to our best team.”
Though Leeds’ regular season ended with back-to-back defeats, Arthur was proud of his side’s battling performance at the defending champions. Wigan’s four tries came in two, five-minute spells and Leeds didn’t concede after the 48th minute.
The coach said: “Wigan are a dangerous team and they attacked really well and we probably shut down more than we let in. They scored two quick tries in the second half and had a bit of momentum, but we scrambled hard, fought well and made a couple of line breaks.
“It would have been nice if we’d executed better and turned them into points, but we had a fair bit of quality sitting in the grandstand tonight. I was happy with the boys, they tried hard. There were plenty of positives, especially the way we finished the game.
“We could have put the cue on the rack and started to think about next week, but we didn’t. I think that was evident with our fans behind the posts - they were cheering us right to the end because they were proud of the boys fighting until the end of the game.”