Leeds Rhinos go back to basics in pre-season training

Preparations for the 2020 campaign began a week ago, giving Rhinos a three-month build-up to their opening Betfred Super League fixture against Hull on February 2.

Agar said the first week was “all good” – despite difficult conditions – and the focus has been on skills as much as fitness.

Rhinos have been working in the gym and on the all-weather surface at their Kirkstall training base and Agar admitted: “The weather has been really testing.

“We haven’t been able to get on the grass because it has been flooded and we don’t want to destroy our pitches too early.

“We’ve done a fair bit of work on the 3g, but the first couple of weeks we are just concentrating on fundamental skill.

“Skill was a bit of an underlying issue for us throughout last year so it’s back to basics and underpinning our skills which hopefully can take us forward.

“I can’t knock the way we’ve turned up and the boys are in good spirits.”

More players were due to report in today.

“We are still waiting for a few guys to come back, for different reasons,” Agar added.

“Our England Knights boys weren’t back the first week and Ash Handley has had to disappear [to Australia] with Great Britain.“Rhyse [Martin] and Konny [Konrad Hurrell] are still out there too, but it’s a good opportunity to get some good skill and education into some of our younger blokes really early.”

Leeds’ pre-season campaign will begin against Wakefield Trinity on Boxing Day and other warm-up games have been confirmed at home to Bradford Bulls on January 12 and at Featherstone Rovers on January 24 and they will travel to Newcastle Thunder on Sunday, January 26 (3pm).

Agar said the possibility of a pre-season camp has “still to be decided”.

He said: “I think at this stage a camp would be a nicety.

“As a coach it is always lovely to get a camp, but that’ll probably depend on budgets moving forward.

“We think it’s important that we get everything else right in the club first. It is a possibility, but we are just working through a couple of things before we decide whether we are going to go that way or not.

“We’d like to, but I think we’ve got more important priorities to lock in first.”

Agar has been working without a right-hand man following Ryan Carr’s return to Australia at the end of last season.

“We’ve still not finalised an assistant-coach,” he said.

“We’ve got some things in the offing and I want to make sure our playing staff is right.”

Rob Burrow has moved up to coach Leeds’ new reserve side, with Chev Walker – one of Agar’s assistants last season – taking over the academy.

Rhinos have brought in only two new faces, Luke Gale and Alex Mellor, since the end of last season.

The club are looking to replace NewZealand-born forward Nathaniel Peteru who has been released from the final year of his contract.

One target is Cronulla Sharks forward Matt Prior.

The 32-year-old former St George man has played more than 250 NRL games and made his State of Origin debut for New South Wales last year.