Leeds Rhinos starts need to improve but coach Brad Arthur excited by 15-week Super League run-in

Leeds go into this weekend’s Challenge Cup final break on the back of a 52-0 thrashing of bottom side Huddersfield Giants which lifted them back into top spot on the table. With 12 of the 27 rounds completed, Arthur is happy with how things have gone so far, but accepts the hard work is still ahead.

Rhinos’ players have been given some time off this week before preparations begin for the huge AMT Headingley showdown with second-placed St Helens on Thursday, June 4. Assessing his side’s current state of play, Arthur said: “Our starts haven’t been fantastic, but we improved that [against Giants], which is good.

“Our execution at times has been a bit off, as it was last week [against Wigan] under a bit of pressure. I thought we kept a bit of composure, we just lacked a bit of execution - the ball didn’t go where it needed to.

“There’s still some things we need to continue to work on, but overall I think we are in a pretty good place. We have just got to make sure we keep that hunger and desire from week to week.”

Rhinos’ campaign has been stop-start so far with three breaks since they were knocked out of the Betfred Challenge Cup by Wakefield Trinity in March, but it’s week to week rugby from here on in. At this stage their squad remains relatively healthy with only Jack Bird, Tom Holroyd and long-term casualties Max Simpson, Alfie Edgell and George Brown not available for last Friday’s game because of injury. Lachie Miller has two matches remaining on his suspension, but Arthur feels they are in good shape to attack the next four months.

“Adam [Megretton, head of strength and conditioning] and Ferg [David Ferguson, lead physio] have done a really good job with our program,” he stated. “They’ve made sure they’ve mapped out the weeks really well so hopefully we’ll be able to make the most of that 15 weeks straight.”