Leeds Rhinos' winger Tom Briscoe puts attack on red alert

Rhinos got off the mark in Betfred Super League with a 17-14 win at Leigh Centurions last week, but Briscoe reckons they have to be much better on attack when Salford Red Devils visit Headingley Carnegie on Friday.

Briscoe described the victory at Leigh as “very hard fought” and admitted: “We made it really hard for ourselves in that second half.

“There were too many silly errors, giving the ball away in our own half and I thought our kicking game just got them on the front foot straight away.

“Their back-three had great games, carrying the ball fast and strong back at us.

“We wanted to try and slow them down, but they were good and we struggled with that and struggled to win the ball back.

“The way we attacked we put a lot of stress on our defence so credit to our goalline D, but we need to fix our attack up pretty sharpish.”

Twice in the final five minutes Leigh looked like snatching victory, only to be denied by game-saving tackles.

Jimmy Keinhorst and Ryan Hall combined to halt Atelea Vea and then, on the other flank, Briscoe nailed Matty Dawson just short of the line.

The winger is better known for scoring tries, but insisted his late heroics were just part of the job.

He said: “I just chased back as hard as I could and it just happened that he ran into me a bit so I just tried to do what we do – save those tries.

“That’s what we need to do at the minute; our attack is putting our on-line defence to the test.”

Despite Leeds’ problems with ball in hand, Briscoe said there were positives from last week’s game – including quick-thinking from Liam Sutcliffe to land a late 40-20 which lifted Leigh’s siege, after he had booted a drop goal on the stroke of half-time.

“To be honest, I was that tired that I did not realise it was a 40/20,” Briscoe said of the late kick.

“It was great vision from Sutty and great execution and composure from him firstly to get the drop goal right on the half-time buzzer, then also to nail that 40/20 and take a bit of pressure off.”

This week’s opponents Salford boast a similar record to Leeds, having won last weekend following a defeat in Super League round one. Briscoe is predicting a “tough game”, and he said: “They’ve signed Todd Carney and he should be here in time for it.

“I think he’s a great player, but he just needs to fit into how they play and if he plays against us we’ll need to do our homework on him.”

It will be Rhinos’ first home game of the season and Briscoe added: “We’ve started with two away games so it’ll be nice to get to Headingley and give our home support something to celebrate. Hopefully we’ll put in a bit of a better performance in attack, to give them [the Leeds Rhinos fans] something to cheer.”