Leeds Rhinos: Kruise Leeming on how hurting Rhinos hope to ease their early-season Super League pain

It’s a really important one for us because, after three games we haven’t got a win yet, athough I don’t think we are far off.

In the Warrington game and the Catalans game, we played well enough to win but some 10-minute periods let us down.

There were just a few minutes when we were doing stuff out of character or knocking on or not scoring, or - in round one - getting red and yellow cards.

Those periods have hurt us and cost us the points in the end.

We are defending really hard and working really hard for each other, you can see that, but I think we just need to put a full 80 minutes together.

We are nearly there.

I know we have lost three on the bounce and, for a club like Leeds, that is not good enough but I do think there are some promising signs.

It’s a classic case of when you are winning every week you’re not as good as you think you are and when you are losing you aren’t as bad as you think.

We are hurting at the moment because we are a good group and we work hard, but it’s professional sport and sometimes you have to roll with it.

We are very disappointed, but confident things will turn around for us and results will come. It’s not like people are moping around and letting their heads drop.

We know we are in a tough situation but we are all sticking together and the big thing is, we know you don’t win or lose a Grand Final in the first three games of the season.

If we had won three on the bounce we’d be saying ‘let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, it’s only three games and we don’t want to start walking around like we’ve won the league’.

We’d know things can change quickly and vice-versa.

We’ve lost three games and, while it is disappointing, we don’t want to walk around like we’ve lost a Grand Final and the season’s over.

It is really early stages, we know we need to be better and we will get there.

I am sure Wakefield are saying the same things. They’ve had a similar start to the season, with three losses, but Belle Vue is always a tough place to go.

We have watched them and, despite their results, they are playing well.

They haven’t got a win, but they’ve probably been a bit unlucky.

They troubled Saints a bit last week and lost on a kick at Catalans the week before.

To me, it feels like the league is getting tighter and teams are closer together. Last year, we saw Hull KR get to the semi-finals and we all know there are no easy games now.

That’s brilliant for the viewers and the fans because you can never call a result before the game.

That’s how it should be, it should be a tough competition and good for people to watch.

Hopefully, we’ll have some important players back this week.

I’m not making excuses, but we have had a few ‘big names’ missing and that’s not ideal so it’s good to have some of them back in contention. That said, we have got depth in our squad and I think the lads who have come in have been fantastic.

I’d like to give a special mention to Liam Tindall, who has been great, but you want all your first-team squad fit and available because that gives you the best chance of winning.

All being well, we’ll get a bit nearer to our first-choice 17 on Thursday.

It’s a shame Alex Mellor isn’t available this week, but the good news is he’s not seriously hurt and could be back in the squad next week. It is never nice to see a team-mate - or opponent - stretchered off and it was a worrying time last week.

I am quite close to Alex, he is a good mate of mine and I rang him and made sure he was all right.

He just got his head in the wrong place, but he was well looked after by our medical staff at the ground and by the doctors and nurses when he got to hospital and we are all relieved there’s no serious damage.