Leeds Rhinos must keep pushing on, urges Carl Ablett

WITH THEIR fate in other teams' hands, acting-captain Carl Ablett says all Leeds Rhinos can do is try to get better.
Carl Ablett.Carl Ablett.
Carl Ablett.

Rhinos are ninth in Betfred Super League, three points outside the top-eight with only four left to play for.

They need to win their remaining two games and hope one of the three sides immediately above them - Huddersfield Giants, Catalans Dragons and Wakefield Trinity - don’t pick up another point.

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Ablett felt the 20-20 draw with Wakefield three days ago was a step in the right direction, but insisted they can’t dwell on the league table.

Kevin Sinfield applauds the South Stand at Headingley.Kevin Sinfield applauds the South Stand at Headingley.
Kevin Sinfield applauds the South Stand at Headingley.

“We just need to get ready for Friday’s game against Widnes,” he said. “We’re trying to focus on just getting better and raising our standards a bit. We’ll pick ourselves up, keep going in training and hopefully go and win the game this week.”

The statemate against Trinity ended Rhinos’ eight-game losing run and Ablett reckons new director of rugby Kevin Sinfield and first team coach James Lowes are beginning to make an impact.

“We’ve made a few changes on the field and you saw we were a lot better defensively,” he added. “We had a lot more control and I think we troubled them, especially in the first half.

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“It was a bit disappointing we weren’t further ahead. In the second half they had a lot of ball on our line, but the way we defended was encouraging.

“We conceded a couple of soft tries - I missed a tackle I should have made - and they had a long-range try we were really disappointed with, but you can’t question the effort and desire and the will to work hard for each other.

“If we keep hold of that stuff we’ll get better with the ball, hopefully it’ll stay dry and we can attack these last two games.”

Rhinos led 20-12 with 10 minutes left, but Trinity hit back after being controversially awarded a try by video referee Ben Thaler who confirmed the on-field decision. Ablett said: “They had a try from a kick, which looking at it was questionable - they said there wasn’t enough evidence to chalk it off, but I thought there was enough there to disallow it. Those decisions, sometimes you get them and sometimes you don’t. They can be the fine margins at this time.”