Leeds Rhinos boss reveals 2020 improvements - and where they need to get better

Leeds finished fifth in Betfred Super League, their best position for three seasons and also won the Coral Challenge Cup.

That made it a successful campaign, but the process of doing better in 2021 has already begun, ahead of pre-season starting on January 4

Rhinos’ players and staff carried out reviews this week before beginning their off-season break and Agar admitted this year’s unique circumstances have made analysing the past campaign more difficult.

“It has been a season like no other,” Agar said. “We’ve done a review like we normally do, individually and collectively; look at the stats and data, understand the areas we need to improve and recognise the areas where we can keep adding building blocks and things like that.

“But it is difficult because the season was so disrupted; there was a four-five month gap, we got players in without a pre-season after such a long time off, the fixture list was congested and there were times we had people in isolation - and the rules changed half way through the year.

“The fixture list didn’t have parity so the stats can be a little bit skewed, but there’s still enough in there to look for us to recognise and understand where we think we’ve done well and also highlight some areas of improvement for us.”

Agar insisted: “Looking back at 2019, there were some areas in particular we wanted to be better at that we were and that certainly reflected in our game.

“In terms of keep doing, stop doing, start doing, there’s quite a lot of keep doings in there. We think we’ve made progress, but at the same time we did a review from the Catalans game because we felt we should have been playing this weekend in the semi-finals and probably think we’ve only got ourselves to blame.”

Rhinos fell at the first hurdle in the play-offs, losing 26-14 to Catalans Dragons eight days ago after going 18-0 behind in the first half.

“Our first 10 minutes had a big bearing on the game, but we still had chances in the last 10 minutes to bring the game home,” Agar said.

“We don’t want to be sat in a room next year having the same conversations.

“We need to understand those feelings and make sure we are not feeling the same way at the same stage next year.”

Of where Rhinos have improved in 2020, Agar said: “It is difficult, because I looked at us pre-Covid and I know we lost in round one, but I thought we were in a really good position.

“I do think the challenges that Covid has thrown at the game have affected everyone and we were no different. We had some guys who never regained their pre-season fitness, because of the break and the schedule.

“We never regained the sharpness and fitness we had, because of a fairly obvious multitude of issues.”

But he stressed: “I think from 2019 to 2020, we were a team ranked around the bottom one or two who pass the ball.

“We wanted to be a team that pass the ball more - for ascetic reasons, style of play and what it’ll do to the opposition.

“We saw a big increase in that and we’ve kept our stats for line breaks, tackle busts, metres gained.

“They were very high and for a coach it’s great to know you have got a team that can get forward, use the ball, make line breaks and beat tackles.

“It generally means you’ve always got a chance in a game of posting some points when that’s as strong as it is.

“We wanted to improve the tries we scored from kicks, I think we are at the same number, but we played 10 games less so we certainly improved on that.

“We were a strong team for defending back-to-back sets and goalline drop outs, which is an important factor and we were fairly strong on linebreaks conceded.”

In terms of what Leeds need to do better, Agar noted: “We are making too many errors, though our errors have changed.

“We were making less errors coming away from our own end and probably a few more playing in good ball.

“Improving our tackle completions is another focus, but all of it is fixable.

“We feel from a spirit and commitment point of view we got it right more often than not and that’s something we can enhance and build on moving forward.”

Support the YEP and become a subscriber today. Enjoy unlimited access to local news and the latest on Leeds United, With a digital subscription, you see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Click here to subscribe.