Brad Dwyer’s relishing the competition for hooker role at Leeds Rhinos

Dwyer made 21 starts last year and eight appearances off the bench, scoring five tries and kicking a famous match-winning drop goal against Castleford Tigers.

At times he was devastatingly effective on attack, but admits he is aware of what he needs to improve in his all-round game.

“I think I’ll be better for the minutes I played last year,” the former Warrington man – who is now entering his third season with Rhinos – said.

“That highlighted some things I needed to work on and my goal is to be playing big minutes, not an impact player that people have labelled me in the past.

“It’s about keeping the strengths I’ve got and just selecting when I need to do things and what’s best for the team at certain times.

“I’m really positive, the competition [for places] will bring the best out of me and we’ll see where we end up.”

That competition is fierce this year. As well as signing England Knights hooker Kruise Leeming – who is currently on the injured list – from Huddersfield Giants, Rhinos have high hopes for teenager Corey Johnson and Richie Myler has filled in at acting-half in pre-season after losing his half-back spot to recruit Luke Gale.

Rhinos coach Richard Agar made bringing in a hooker a priority, but Dwyer, who signed a new one-year contract last season, insists he has no issues with Leeming’s arrival.

He said: “You’d say you don’t want anyone taking your position, you want to play every week, but me and Kruise have already spoken to each other about what competition brings for us and that’s for the best for the team.

“Whatever happens, happens and that’s great that we’ve cleared that.

“I’ve played with Kruise before, he’s great. It [competition] is coming from all ends, Corey has been great this pre-season. He has got so much potential and he has been pushing me and Kruise along in fitness and everything he does.

“That’s great and add Dicky [Myler] to that. The situation he is in he is going to try and find a place wherever he can get in the team, which is great.

“He has played a lot of rugby league and it helps in the fact he has played half-back, so he will be seeing what he needs to be doing from nine.

“It is good for the squad that we’ve got competition and whoever’s best for the position that week will play, I’d imagine. If that gets us winning, that’s what matters.”

After defeating Wakefield Trinity and Bradford Bulls in their two previous warm-up matches, Dwyer admits Sunday’s trip to his home town to face Wigan Warriors in Liam Farrell testimonial game will “probably be our biggest test”.

He said: “Wigan will put a strong team out – Faz deserves it – and we are going pretty strong. We will try and work on what we need to improve from last week and keep our D [defence], use that as a platform.

“It will be a great gauge for us to see where we are at and we’ve still got a couple of weeks yet to fine-tune things.”

Of pre-season up to now, Dwyer said: “It has been very good, we did a lot of hard work before Christmas and that went into the Boxing Day game. We were pretty pleased with how that went, for that time of the year.

“It wasn’t full-strength teams, but we were really happy with what we dished out. Then we had a good week in camp last week. We got some work done on and off the field and it brought us together as a group which was great. It was probably one of the best I’ve been a part of.”

Dwyer admitted Jamie Jones-Buchanan’s testimonial against Bulls last Sunday – which was also a fund-raiser for Rob Burrow – was “a bit of a strange game to play in”.

Rhinos fielded a strong side, with Dwyer starting at hooker, but also gave a run-out in the final few minutes to guest players from the club’s golden generation, including Jones-Buchanan and Burrow.

Dwyer said: “We tried to take the emotion out of it and get the job done, especially in the first half.

“When the legends came on it was all about JJB and Rob, but we spoke about the best thing we could do for them was put a good performance in.

“We certainly did that with our D. We were a bit scratchy with the ball in hand, we probably could have played with the ball a bit more than we did, but we got the job done and it was a great occasion to be part of.

“It was great to see the Leeds fans and a full stadium, but the whole of rugby league came together.”