Leeds Rhinos' Mikolaj Oledzki pledges 'improvements', vows to 'polish things up' from Warrington Wolves loss

Rhinos’ early exit means they have no game this weekend, when the Betfred Challenge Cup quarter-finals will be played. Their next match is at home to Huddersfield Giants in Super League on Friday, April 19.

That gives Rhinos two weeks to dwell on a 34-8 defeat by Warrington Wolves, which was their third successive home loss in all competitions and left them eighth in the table with a quarter of the campaign completed. “It was a difficult one, we are all very disappointed and we know across the board there’s improvements needed everywhere,” Oledzki accepted.

“We are going to use this week to really polish things up and get back to work. We’ve got a big two weeks now to get our heads down and really turn things around.”

Oledzki admitted Rhinos won’t know until after the Huddersfield game whether the free weekend has been a blessing or a curse. He added: “It depends how you look at it.

“We are gutted we are not part of the Challenge Cup, that we left early doors, but it does give us an opportunity to really grab hold of the way we want to play and how we want to approach this next period of the season. We have a chance to polish things up and play the way we want to play and the little periods in games when we are a bit disconnected, stop that from happening.”

Rhinos led 4-0 early on against Warrington and staged a brief fightback after trailing 16-4 at half-time, but the visitors scored three converted tries in the final quarter to leave Leeds well beaten. Assessing what went wrong, Oledzki reflected: “We need to show a bit more respect for the ball.

“We didn’t respect the ball as much as we should have done, myself included. I had a mistake under my belt and I stew on everything that goes wrong for me personally.

“That is something I need to fix up, but we need to keep hold of the ball more and be in the grind for a bit longer. I feel like we get to our best when we are in that grind for a while and try to break teams down by grinding it out.”

One positive was the debut of 19-year-old three-quarter Ned McCormack, a former England under-18 rugby union international who joined Leeds a year ago. He got a taste of Super League action as a second half substitute and Oledzki reckons the youngster has a bright future.

“He is one of the nicest kids I’ve ever met,” Oledzki said. “He works hard, does everything 100 per cent and he’s a competitor. He is a great guy to be around.

“He’s not a shy kid, he is great to talk to. We were really gutted about the result and gutted we couldn’t give him the debut he deserves.

“The time he has been with us he has really ripped in, competed at everything and he deserved a better outcome at Headingley, in front of our great fans. We said to him afterwards he will get another chance for sure - in the not so distant future - and we will get a win for him.”