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Leeds Rhinos: Kirke’s ready to fight for his place
Ian Kirke in match action.
Four-time Grand Final winner Ian Kirke accepts he is going to have to scrap for his place in Leeds Rhinos’ side this year.
Kirke was left out of last Friday’s Rob Burrow testimonial match against Featherstone Rovers, which was Rhinos’ only full-scale practice game before their league campaign begins on February 3.
Instead, Kirke played in a second-string line-up against Hunslet Hawks in the annual Leeds Brewery Lazenby Cup clash two days later.
Front-row recruits Darrell Griffin and Richard Moore both featured against Featherstone – and Leeds also have England skipper Jamie Peacock to return after he was rested for that game.
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There are eight props with top-flight experience in Rhinos’ 30-man squad and Kirke – who signed a new two-year contract extention last season – admitted: “There’s a lot of competition.
“It is good. It gives us the opportunity to do a bit of rotation and keep people fresh, though I don’t think anyone ever wants to be rotated.
“It will just be a case of us all getting our heads down and trying to get a spot. We will push each other on, which is good.
“All you can do is fight for your place. It is going to be hard, but the good thing is it will push us all on to do our best.”
Griffin and Moore are the only players with Super League experience to have joined Rhinos since the end of last year.
But Kirke insisted: “I think the squad is strong across the board.
“We have got two young centres in there, but even if they don’t play we have got people like Brett Delaney and Carl Ablett who did an awesome job there last year.
“The squad in general is looking good.”
Kirke, 31, was the oldest player in Leeds’ side at Hunslet and he reckons being the senior man could benefit him in the long-term.
He said: “Mac (coach Brian McDermott) asked me to play on Sunday. He thought I was a bit below-par against Wakefield on Boxing Day and he was probably right.
“I didn’t get many carries, but I went a lot better when we played a game amongst ourselves during the camp in Cyprus – playing in the back-row.
“Mac wanted me to get some game time in the front-row at the weekend, but I was struggling with a bit of a virus and I didn’t feel great.
“I just got my head down and made a few carries. I was steady away, I probably could have had more carries, but it was hard because I’ve not trained with those (under-20s) lads and I don’t know some of their names.
“It is always hard playing in games like that, but it is good. You get something out of playing with younger lads because you have to be more of a leader.
“You don’t have to do that as much in our (first) team because you’ve got people like Kevin Sinfield and Jamie Peacock.
“In the team on Sunday it fell to me to do more talking, so it was probably good for me in some ways.”
Rhinos complete their pre-season programme on Sunday when a fringe team will travel to Whitehaven.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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