Leeds Rhinos ace Lachie Miller makes 'let team down' admission as he plans big response v Leigh Leopards

The Australian has been in sparkling form for Rhinos this season - and is joint sixth on the Man of Steel leaderboard - but felt he “let the team down” during last week’s 18-4 loss at St Helens. That result, coupled with Leigh’s win at Catalans Dragons, meant the teams swapped places in Betfred Super League, with the Leopards going third, a point ahead of Leeds.

The league situation makes it a huge game, but Rhinos have more personal reasons to play well after their five-match hot streak ended at TW Stadium. “I have been pretty happy with the past few weeks, I’ve been doing my job, fitting into the team and feeling really comfortable,” Miller reflected.

“[Last week] I felt like I was off, I let the team down a couple of times. But it was just one of those games - it is hard to be up for every game, but that’s the sort of standard I want to keep myself to. I am a bit disappointed with myself, but we move on from it and I’ll be better this week.”

Coach Brad Arthur blamed his side’s poor attitude on the night for the loss at Saints and Miller agreed with that assessment. “Our attitude, from the outset, wasn’t good enough,” accepted. “We’ve had some really tough and tight games, Saints is always a hard game and I don’t think we went with the right attitude.

“You can’t do that against any team, let alone Saints. We trained well all week and everyone felt good coming into it, but you can’t start games with a poor attitude, which is what we did. If you dip your toe in the water you can’t win games and that’s what we did.”

Rhinos made a series of handling errors, at both ends of the field and all Saints’ points came following mistakes by Leeds, including an early knock-on by Miller at a play-the-ball. “I had one where I went to push a player, which was silly,” Miller admitted. “It was slippery out there, but I think if you have the right attitude, you don’t make those errors - and we haven’t been making those errors.

“It is a tight league and it was a good reminder to us, a wake-up call and something we need to bounce back from. That game is done and we need to park it and move on - use it as a bit of ammo and fuel and come into Leigh bouncing.”

Last week’s game was played in sweltering conditions. It is expected to be cooler, though still in the 20s, when this week’s game kick-off. “It was good,” Miller said of last week’s heat. “It was really hot, a good night for footy, to be honest, but Saints handled it better than us. That’s a bit disappointing, but it’s one of those things we have to cop and then move on.”