Huddersfield Giants v Leeds Rhinos: New rule changes will suit us, says Matt Prior

Betfred Super League will resume, following a five-month break because of coronavirus, with a behind closed doors double-header at Emerald Headingley.

St Helens take on Catalans Dragons at 4.15pm before Leeds face Huddersfield Giants at 6.30pm.

There will be no scrums for the rest of this season, with play being restarted by a handover following a kick out on the full, knock-on or forward pass.

And instead of awarding a penalty following infringements in the ruck, referees will restart the tackle count, giving the attacking team an extra set of six.

As a big man playing in the middle of the field, Prior will be one of those most affected, but he insisted: “I like the rule change.”

The Aussie prop predicted: “It is obviously going to speed it up a bit, but it is going to make it a bit quicker in the middle and make the attack a bit more flowing.

“With the team we’ve got, the mobility in our pack and our dummy-halves – Brad Dwyer and Kruise Leeming are both great off a quick play the ball – we should benefit from it a fair bit.

“Obviously we are going to be blowing a fair bit in the middle, but you’ve just got to take that I guess. We might be putting our hand up to come off a bit sooner than we normally do.”

Organised training resumed only three weeks ago, though Prior – having been abroad – missed the first few sessions due to health and safety guidelines.

“It has been good,” he said of preparations for tomorrow. “We’ve not had a lot of time to get ready for a game, but it is what it is and we’ve actually been training really well.

“That’s a credit to everyone at the club and all the boys who kept fit during lockdown. I think we are all in pretty good nick and good stead for this weekend.”

Of his own condition, Prior said: “One of the things I tried to do was keep in good shape.

“I tried to get out of the house as much as I can and do some training and it was good knowing I was still ticking the boxes, even though we were in lockdown and there was no sign of playing at the time.

“We just had to keep ticking over anyway. The club have been really good, the staff gave us programmes to do and I don’t think many of the boys missed a session over the break.

“Everyone was pretty fit the first day back, so it has been really good.”

The challenge now is to take that positivity into tomorrow’s game, which comes 150 days after Leeds’ previous match and exactly six months since the season began.

Prior said: “It will be very interesting to see where we are at, because we were playing some good footy before everything happened.

“Having had such a long interruption it will be interesting to see if we can just bounce straight back and pick up where we left off.

“Personally, I think we are going to be okay because the way everyone trained over the break and came straight back into it, it doesn’t feel like anything has been disrupted too much.

“I think we should be able to handle it pretty well.”

Prior joined Rhinos from Cronulla Sharks in December on a two-year contract.

His first season with Leeds has been far from straightforward, but he stressed he has no regrets.

“I am very happy to be here,” the 33-year-old former State of Origin man said.

“The disruption has probably made it a bit harder than it had to be, but we were enjoying our time before everything happened and we still love it here.”

Living 12,000 miles away from home made lockdown that bit tougher for Prior and he will be relieved when the first whistle blows tomorrow.

He admitted: “For me personally, it just went on a bit too long.

“It was hard for my partner and our little one, being so far away from our families back in Australia.

“That made things tough, but at the end of it we got to go down to London and stay at a friend’s house which was good and we got away to France for a week as well.

“It all worked out okay and I am just looking forward to getting back to a bit more normality and getting back out there this weekend and playing. It’s going to be great for everyone.”

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