Leeds Rhinos Ash Handley reflects on 200 appearances and 'complete performance' v Castleford Tigers

The match was played a week before Rhinos’ Challenge Cup final against Castleford Tigers and coach Brian McDermott opted to give three rookies a debut while he rested key men for the big game. The Leeds careers of Ben White - now at Batley Bulldogs - and Ashton Golding, currently a Huddersfield Giants player, long since fizzled out, but Ash Handley is still going strong and is now a member of Leeds’ elite 200-game club.

The winger brought up the milestone in the 26-6 derby win at Castleford Tigers, but admitted his double century “just snuck up on me”. He said: “I was thinking about the game and I didn’t know too much about it until a couple of days before.”

At 28, Handley still has some good years ahead of him, but insisted he isn’t setting a target for how many games he could play for his home city club. The former Oulton Raiders junior, who came through Rhinos’ academy, stressed: “We’ll see - I’ll just keep ticking them off. I am grateful to have been able to represent Leeds 200 times. I’ll keep going and see where I get to.”

Handley’s 200th game was a much happier experience than his debut, made extra special by the opponents and venue. He said: “What a place to have your 200th game, the Jungle. We have struggled there in the past, but I thought we were really good. We were defensively solid and stuck to our plan.

“Apart from the Leigh game, when we were a bit shaky in the first half, we’ve been defensively solid all season and [last Thursday] was no different. We played the conditions pretty well and I think that’s the rule at the moment - it’s sunny all day on game day, then as soon as kick-off comes it starts bouncing down. It was a complete performance really.”

Friday will mark the quarter-way point of the campaign. Rhinos have won four of their six Betfred Super League fixtures so far and the next four - against Warrington Wolves, Huddersfield Giants, Hull FC and London Broncos - are an opportunity to kick on up the table.

“They are different games against opponents who’ve all got different strengths,” Handley noted. “It is a big block coming up for us. We’ve got a few gaps with not being in the Challenge Cup, so we’ll take it one game at a time. We’re on to [this week] now, it’ll be a tough game and we are looking forward to it.”

Rhinos’ Challenge Cup exit, following a home loss to St Helens, was a huge disappointment, but Handley reckons Rhinos are “doing all right” in the weekly competition. He said: “We had two tough games against Saints and that was probably an eye-opener for us. We took a lot of learnings from that and we’ll try to keep building, keep striving for the best we can get.

“We are probably not chiming as well as we’d like in attack, but that’s going to take some time. Everyone knows we’ve got a new spine and they are just getting used to each other, but we will get there. We’ll just focus on Warrington this week and see how that goes.”

Paul Momirovski and Lachie Miller both bagged a brace of tries against Tigers, their first for Leeds and Handley reckons all the off-season recruits are settling in and proving their worth.

“They all performed well and they’ve been good in the games prior as well,” he said. “I’m looking forward to seeing them kick on now.

On a personal note, Hanley scored seven tries in Rhinos’ first four matches, but hasn’t touched down in the last three. He reflected: “It’s not all about scoring, I like to do my best for the team and if that’s putting the ball down over the line I’ll do that. But my job is mostly based on yardage carries and I try to do those the best I can for the team and take us forward. I feel pretty sweet, my body’s fine and I’ll just keep ticking away.”