Leeds Rhinos’ injury woes are irrelevant as far as visiting coach Sam Burgess is concerned.

Leeds will go into tomorrow’s (Friday) Betfred Super League semi-final without Man of Steel nominee Lachie Miller after he suffered a season-ending hamstring injury last month. Captain Ash Handley, who was due to play at full-back, has joined Miller on the casualty list with a back problem and centre Jack Bird (hamstring) is also unavailable.

Twenty-year-old Fergus McCormack is set to feature at full-back for only his fifth first team game and three other members of Rhinos’ 21-man squad, Ned McCormack, George Brown and Zak Lloyd, have made fewer than 10 senior appearances.

However, asked at his pre-match press conference about Rhinos’ injuries, Burgess insisted: “Leeds have got a phenomenal academy programme for this reason, so I don’t think it matters. It doesn’t make a difference to us at all.”

Warrington Wolves coach Sam Burgess, right, shakes hands with Leeds Rhinos rival Brad Arthur ahead of the sides' meeting at AMT Headingley in March. Picture by Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com.

placeholder image — Warrington Wolves coach Sam Burgess, right, shakes hands with Leeds Rhinos rival Brad Arthur ahead of the sides' meeting at AMT Headingley in March. Picture by Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com.

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The Warrington boss described Miller, Handley and Bird as “three great players”, but stressed: “We’re playing our game, we’re going to be ourselves. It’s at their place, they have the right to the home semi-final - we’re going there as free men and we’re going to give it everything we’ve got.”

Though only points difference separated them on the league table, Rhinos hit back from 12-0 down to beat Warrington 26-22 at AMT Headingley in March and won 34-6 in the away fixture three months later. Burgess reflected: “It has been hard to take too much from either of those games and I can’t remember what round it was we played them last, so it feels like I’ve not seen them for a while. I don’t feel like I’ve been watching them a lot as well recently, so it has been a good couple of days, getting my head around them as a team and seeing what they are doing.”

He noted: “They’ve got a lot of good players and their execution has been very good. Although they’ve got an exciting style of play, they’ve got some big forwards as well and they are pretty physical. They’ve got a good balance in the squad - good skill, good size. Jake Connor has been on fire. He has had a great year again and they’ve had a lot of consistency in the group.”