Leeds Rhinos boss celebrates 'club award', hails 'gradual improvement' but makes 'things can change' warning
Leeds Rhinos’ Brad Arthur has dedicated his coach of the month award to the entire club.
The Australian reckons the first half of the campaign has been a period of ‘gradual improvement’ for Rhinos, but insists they can get much better. Leeds had a 100 per cent record in May, beating St Helens, Castleford Tigers, Hull FC and Wakefield Trinity.
That lifted them into third spot in the Betfred Super League table midway through the season and they are on course to feature in the play-offs for the first time since 2022. “It is great to have my name next to it, but I think it’s more a reflection and reward for the whole club,” Arthur said of his award, which was decided by a panel of rugby league media.
“My name is next to it, but that doesn’t happen unless the players are buying in and doing their job and the staff are giving the players the right information and the club’s providing us with the best environment possible to allow that to happen. It is a club award.”
Rhinos face Warrington Wolves at AMT Headingley tomorrow (Saturday) and Arthur stressed what happened in May is irrelevant now. “[The award] is nice, but it is not going to count for much next month or the month after, unless we continue to keep doing what we are doing at the moment,” he warned.
“We are going to have our ups and downs. It is how we respond to it and bounce out the other side that counts, whether that is a positive response or negative.”
Though Rhinos are in their strongest position since their most recent Grand Final win, eight years ago, Arthur still reckons “our best footy is still further down the track”. Only table-topping Hull KR have conceded fewer points in the opening 13 rounds, but four teams ave a better scoring record. Reflecting on the first half of the campaign, Arthur described it as a “gradual improvement”.
The coach said: “We had some charges to the squad throughout pre-season and with a bit of time we have got better and we understand each other; I have got a better understanding of the group and they’ve got better understanding of my behaviours.
“On the back of that, a little bit of confidence helps and we are reasonably healthy. The way the club is running at the moment, with our youth and development programmes, I think we are in a good spot, but things can change. We are only half way through the season and there’s still a lot of hard work to do.”
He added: “There’s bits in our game we need to continue to tweak and work on, but we wanted to get to this point having been consistent and reliable with our performances and knowing what sort of team we want to be. At the moment I feel like we do, now we need to add bits and pieces to our game so we get that gradual improvement, without losing our identity.”