Leeds Rhinos' Jarrod O'Connor reveals 80-minute player ambition, outlines 'best in league' target

With back-up hooker Corey Johnson starting at stand-off, O’Connor played throughout Rhinos’ 16-14 win at Salford Red Devils and topped their tackle count with 26.

In the modern game teams tend to interchange their acting-halves, but O’Connor revealed getting through without a rest is “something I really want to do”.

The 21-year-old, who has not missed a game for more than a year, stated: “I have been playing longer minutes lately and that’s something that really excites me.

“I think it is something that will help my game, getting more time will benefit me going forward and I am really enjoying it.

“I feel very fit at the minute and I want to be an 80 minute hooker - or play 80 minutes, because I can go to loose-forward as well.”

Coach Rohan Smith has tended to give Johnson a stint off the bench in the second half, sometimes with O’Connor switching into the 13 role.

“Whatever Rohan does, I’ll back,” O’Connor stressed. “If he thinks Corey needs to come on I am happy to do that because I know how good Corey is and how much of a threat he can be around the ruck.

“We are really happy working together and we just want to help each other push on.”

While O’Connor is “happy” with the way he is playing, he believes there is more still to come. He is still relatively new to his position and added: “The defence and passing has been there since last year; lately I have been trying to push around the ruck and create more.

“The last few weeks I have been doing that and that’s something I want to keep doing and getting better at.”

The victory at Salford was Leeds’ third in a row and raised comparisons with 2022 when they won nine of their final 11 games in the regular season.

Victory over Hull KR on Friday would lift them to sixth place, but O’Connor insisted: “We aren’t going to think about that.

“We could go undefeated for the rest of the year if we keep playing well. We know the team we’ve got could be the best in the league, that’s what we believe and we are going to strive towards that every week.”

After thrashing Huddersfield Giants 54-0 and controlling the game for a 22-6 victory at Warrington Wolves, Rhinos needed to dig deep against Salford.

It took the hosts just eight minutes to wipe out a 12-4 interval deficit and Leeds were under the pump for spells before two penalty goals secured the points.

“We haven’t had a win like that for a while, where we’ve had to really fight it out and it’s a bit scruffy,” O’Connor admitted.

“That’s what we needed, we got a lot of those wins towards the back end of last year. We didn’t get the start we wanted to the second half, but we knew we’d come back from that.

“We had belief in our defence throughout the whole game, especially on our goal line. It felt really comfortable and we stuck in there together.”

Salford scored three tries to Rhinos’ two, all of them coming from kicks. The ball has been carried across Leeds’ line just once in their last three games and O’Connor said: “That’s a positive.

“On the flip side, that kick defence is something we have to work on. It is probably easily fixable by getting more people around the ball, but I am sure we will look at that and review it. Overall, I think our defence has got a lot more solid.”