Leeds Rhinos coach Rohan Smith talks selection issues, injury update and defeat at Hull KR

Rhinos’ pre-season campaign ended in dismal fashion when they were beaten 26-4 at Hull KR on Sunday, 11 days before their league opener at Warrington Wolves on Thursday, February 16.

Smith fielded his strongest side of pre-season, but stressed he is not close to knowing his line-up for the first competitive game.

“We’ve got, I think, maybe 22, 23 Super League-ready players who will be fit, practised and ready,” he said.

“We have got a lot of versatility in our squad, people can play different positions so it’s about settling on what’s the best balance for round one.”

Forward James McDonnell missed the defeat at Hull KR through illness, but David Fusitu’a got through his first game since last August with no major concerns, Smith said.

Fusitu’a played the first 40 minutes in the left-centre, then switched to the wing after the break, but was taken off in the opening moments.

Smith explained: “He had a bit of a bump and that was his first game. There’s nothing [serious], he was quite frustrated with me after the game so I took that as a good sign he wasn’t too busted.”

Of McDonnell, Smith confirmed: “He has been ill the last few days. He was desperate to play, he would’ve played with a fever of 40, but it wasn’t smart so we had to stand him down.”

Winger/centre Derrell Olpherts also missed Sunday’s game, after being ill last week. Smith said: “He has got a few things to check out, but we are expecting he’ll be back in full training soon and we’ll take it as it comes after that.”

Despite accepting Rhinos “definitely got out-played” in their fourth and final pre-season match, Smith was relatively upbeat afterwards.

“I’d say we got a reasonable conditioning hit-out despite the repeated stoppages that didn’t bring about replacement, even on an unlimited interchange day,” he said.

“I think there were four play-one errors in the first half, so you can’t get any cohesion. There was an attempt to do what we set out to do - we know how we want to attack, we didn’t execute it and we have to find the right balance between patience and passing the ball.

“But overall, I think it was a decent hit out. We looked physically pretty good, we didn’t look too tired at many stages.

“Defensively I thought we tackled effectively, aside from inside our own 10. We let them play the ball too quick and they scored with a couple of barge overs. That will get attended to.”

Smith identified one area in particular to work on. He said: “We had a couple of play-the-ball errors.

“We barely had a play-the-all error at the back end of last year, since I arrived. We had a couple today and one last week and one the week before, so we’ll be playing the ball a lot this week.

“We will practise lots of things and we are going to have to be a lot better against a very aggressive and willing Warrington team.”