Leeds Rhinos news: Kallum Watkins role confirmed v Huddersfield Giants as 'tough' decision put on hold

Rhinos paid Salford Red Devils a transfer fee for Watkins last week and coach Brad Arthur confirmed he will be in the team to face visitors Huddersfield Giants in Betfred Super League round eight. The now 34-year-old’s first game for Rhinos was on April 18, 2008, when he was among the try scorers in a 38-16 Challenge Cup win against Celtic Crusaders at Headingley.

Watkins, who left Leeds in 2019, will replace suspended prop Mikolaj Oledzki in Rhinos’ 17 for the Easter fixture. Speaking at his weekly preview press conference today, Arthur confirmed: “I don’t want to apply too much pressure to him early in the piece. He will start off the bench and we’ll put him on.

“I just want to see him get a feel for how we play and what we are trying to do around where we want to play our field position. We’ll give him a couple of roles to play in that; he will play a bit in the middle for us and try to get some short interchange of passing going.

“Outside of that, as long as he carries strong and works hard in defence and starts to ease himself into our systems, on the back of how he trained today, I feel like he will get in there nice and smoothly, pretty quickly, I reckon.”

Arthur said Watkins, now playing in the pack, has already made an impact on the group. “You can feel his presence,” he added. “He hasn’t said a great deal yet, but I am sure [he will] once he gets comfortable in the environment. You can see his presence and the respect levels from the players.”

Oledzki picked up a one-game ban after being sin-binned during last Thursday’s 28-0 win at Salford. Arthur admitted losing one of his top forwards is a blow - but joked it has put a tough decision on hold. “I have been really happy with the way Mik has been playing,” he said. “He has been playing really well for us each week and fronting up and getting us off to good starts, but it provides someone else with an opportunity. That’s how we’ve looked at it.

“I can joke about it - it has made my decision easier not to have to worry about having a tough conversation with one of the boys. No one really deserves to miss out on the team this week, so I suppose it gets put off for a week.”

Rhinos have accepted Oledzki’s suspension for grade C head contact. Keenan Palasia avoided an immediate ban for a similar offence which was graded B by the match review panel. It was Palasia’s second sin-binning in successive games and Arthur insisted there was “no malice or deliberate intent from Mik or Keenan”. He stressed: “I feel a bit sorry for those big guys, when they’ve got the smaller guys running at them. We’ve worked really hard as a group on lowering our target area and we’ve got to continue to do that.”