'A tough opportunity': Leeds Rhinos ready to douse Catalans Dragons' fire in huge Super League clash

Rhinos are on a high after last week’s 42-12 hammering of Wigan Warriors, but have not won in France since May, 2017.

Smith rates third-placed Catalans as a “high performing team” and admitted: “It would be a good result if we can go there and win, but it’s going to be hard-fought.”

He warned: “They are a seasoned team that know how to win on their own patch.

“They’ve got some class and leadership in real key positions who steer their team around well so it is going to be a tough opportunity for us.

“We are going to go there, do our best and throw what we’ve got at them, then we’ll see how it looks at full-time.”

Though a fourth win in five games would take Rhinos a step closer to the play-offs, Smith insisted: “I want to win every game we go into and I think every player is like that.

“Every game is the important one; next week is not important until this week is out of the way.

“It doesn’t serve me to look at the ladder and who plays who - we play Catalans and it’s our opportunity to stake a claim this weekend.”

The performance against Wigan showed what Rhinos are capable of, but Smith stressed: “It’s one game at a time, last week doesn’t help us to win this week.

“It’s a matter of every week striving for good preparation and good performance.

“Even some of the defeats we’ve had, the process has been decent.

“Not always great, but at a reasonable level. I’d argue there’s some consistency there.”

Rhinos will travel to and from France on the day, after a three-day expedition two weeks ago when they lost 20-6 at Toulouse Olympique.

The temperature is expected to be around 30 degrees at kick-off time, around 10 degrees lower than it was in Toulouse.

Smith confirmed: “The process we went through to prepare for the heat [last time] has been on-going.

“We’ve been doing our best to have the boys feeling uncomfortable and hot on occasions in the build up so we can do our best.”