Captain Jake Brady hails ‘fabulous’ team of coaches at Leeds Tykes

Leeds host Tonbridge Juddians today looking to secure a fourth win of the campaign in National One having picked up their first away success at Cambridge last week.

Although Tykes are third from bottom, their opponents are at the foot of the table – and Leeds visit second-bottom Plymouth Albion next week.

Former Bath and England Under-20s coach Jon Callard, who coached Leeds in their heyday almost 20 years, recently returned to the club.

The ex-England full-back has quickly got to work aiding director of rugby Phil Davies and fellow coach Wayne Proctor, the former Wales internationals who also led Namibia in World Cup action.

Brady said: “Jon has brought a hell of a lot of enthusiasm and energy.

“He’s bouncing around the place and has some top-class knowledge in terms of kicking game, kicking off the tee, attack and defence.

“He’s really added to the team. He’s still in the process of getting to know players and learning how they play but already he’s had a great impact and made a few tweaks to our game that have helped us.

“He’s been brilliant and it’s a big step in the right direction.

“If you look at our coaching team now it’s pretty ridiculous when you have Phil Davies, Jon Callard and Wayne Proctor – three ex-internationals and all three who have coached at the highest level.

“We are very lucky; the coaching team is in a fabulous place and we’ll see the effects of it in the coming weeks I’m sure.”

Reflecting on the impressive 17-15 win at Cambridge, second-row Brady conceded: “It was a great win.

“We were the underdogs going there but there’s a good amount of belief in the squad and if you look at our games, when you see how many points we’ve lost by, it’s never been much. We had great confidence going down there and it was one of those days when we knew it would be attritional; there were the remnants of Storm Arwen kicking about such as 50 miles per hour gusts straight down the pitch. It was a proper rugby game where the team that wants it more, will win.

“We managed to manage the conditions really well, a lot better than they did anyway.”

Now they will look to record back-to-back wins for the first time this season when Tonbridge arrive at West Park Leeds but their opponents earned a rare success themselves when beating fellow strugglers Plymouth last week.

“They will be confident after that,” added Brady.

“But we’ve had a look at them and know what we need to do to beat them.

“We’ve a few things in our back pocket we can pull out and we’re looking forward to the game and getting some points from it. We’ve got the chance to have a good run-in now.”