Leeds Rhinos' Ryan Hall reveals secret behind South Stand hero status, makes 'put it right' pledge
Club legend Ryan Hall has revealed the family secret behind his status as a Leeds Rhinos South Stand hero.
Hall was one of the few Rhinos players to impress during last Saturday’s 14-12 home loss to Wakefield Trinity in Betfred Super League round one. It was his first league game for Leeds since August, 2018 and the veteran winger - who spent the past four seasons with Hull KR after two years at Sydney Roosters - enjoyed the fans’ welcome, despite the result.
“I don’t want to sound big-headed, but I’m not surprised I got a good reception - because my dad stands next to the band,” Hall revealed. “When it’s quiet and there’s a bit of a lull, he’ll give them a bit of an elbow and get them to sing the Ryan Hall song. I tell the lads that as well and they find it pretty funny.”
Overall, though, there was little for Leeds to celebrate as Wakefield built an early 14-0 lead and then held off a desperate Rhinos fightback. “It is disappointing,” Hall admitted. “Credit to Wakefield, they were well better than us in the first half.
“They had a purple patch when they scored their points, but they looked dangerous on pretty much every shift they did. That’s something we looked at on video, we knew they were a shifting team and we were ready for it, but they were very skilful, they still managed to get round us and they looked dangerous when they did that as well.
“They had a 15-minute period when they scored all their points, but they were dominant throughout the first half and that took away our energy reserve. When the second half came and we did get a foothold in the game and looked like the better team, we probably weren’t as energetic as normal.
“We were frustrated when we did have the ball. I think we had the lion’s share in the second half, but we didn’t pull the shapes we’ve been practicing. We’ll be doing a thorough review to get at the reasons why, because in training, we’ve worked really hard and looked really good when we have thrown the ball about.”
Hall insisted Rhinos will stick to their guns when they visit Salford Red Devils this Saturday. “We’ve got a process we’ll stick to, our philosophy is not going to change,” he said, stressing the opening setback was “not ideal, but not the end of the world either”.
He said: “We’re going to come out against Salford and our philosophy will still ring true, that’s what we are going to try to do, but we’ll try to do it better this time. Wakefield did play well, but part of our philosophy is making a team not be as good.
“There’s two ways of looking at it, you can wait for Wakefield to be good, or you can go and make them not be good. We want to be a team that affects other teams. We weren’t that team and that’s why Wakefield could throw the ball about and they did really well with it. That philosophy will stick with us when we go to Salford and try to put it right.”