Leeds Rhinos: Peteru and '˜young guns' learning valuable lessons says matchday coach Eaton

Assistant-boss Barry Eaton will coach the team in Rhinos’ final pre-season game and is expecting a “good test”. Rhinos will field a mainly young team, including a mix of academy players and first-team squad members. Eaton observed: “We have a relationship with Featherstone and they’ve really strengthened, by the look of their squad, from previous years. They have been pretty successful at the top end of the Championship so we are expecting a tough game and we’re looking forward to it as well.”

The match comes just six days ahead of the Betfred Super League round-one trip to Warrington Wolves.

Ashton Golding, Jimmy Keinhorst, Mitch Garbutt, Brad Dwyer, Nathaniel Peteru, Jack Ormondroyd, Anthony Mullally and Jack Walker will all back up from last Sunday’s defeat at Castleford Tigers.

Full-timers Ash Handley, Harry Newman, Jordan Lilley, Josh Walters, Cameron Smith, Mikolaj Oledzki and Josh Jordan-Roberts are included after featuring in the 70-14 win at Coventry Bears a week ago.

Academy players given another opportunity after impressing against the League One club are Dakota Whylie, Harvey Spence, Corey Johnson, Owen Trout, Thomas Holroyd and Ben Markland.

Holroyd and Markland, who scored a hat-trick at Coventry, are just 16 and Eaton admitted, for them, tonight will be a different ball game. Eaton described the youngsters in the squad as “really talented”, but warned: “It is going to be a big step up, no disrespect to Coventry.

“It will be different in terms of power, pace, skill and class playing against a top-end Championship team who have a lot of players with Super League experience.

“It will be an interesting challenge for our young players, but we’ve got some senior players in there as well and hopefully they will help them out and get them into the swing of the game and really get a grip of it.”

Rhinos academy squad is rated as one of their strongest of recent years and Eaton added: “They went really, really well last week.

“Coventry are a fully-fledged League One team and they are looking to make some strides this year.

“We fielded a lot of young players against them and it was going to be interesting to see how they handled it physically.

“Certainly some of them looked physically ready to play men’s rugby. Physically, this is going to be another level and I’m looking forward to seeing how they cope this week.”

Peteru made his first appearance for Leeds last Sunday and tonight will give the New Zealand-born former Gold Coast Titans forward another chance to adapt to English conditions.

“It’s his first time over here and he is getting used to the players, new systems and the weather,” Eaton said. “It was an eye-opener for him last week, but there’s a good chance in the early rounds of Super League he might face conditions like that again, so it will benefit him if he’s ready for it.”

Featherstone Rovers: from Briscoe, Brooks, Carlile, Cooper, Davies, Farrell, Gale, Hardcastle, Hardman, Hock, Holmes, Knowles, Lockwood, Mariano, Maskill, Moore, Ridyard, Robinson, Taulapapa, Wheeldon, Wildie.

Leeds Rhinos: Golding, Whylie, Handley, Keinhorst, Newman, Spence, Lilley, Garbutt, Dwyer, Peteru, Walters, Ormondroyd, Mullally. Subs Walker, Smith, Oledzki, Jordan-Roberts, Johnson, Trout, Holroyd, Markland.

Referee: John McMullen (Wigan).

Kick-off: Tonight, 7.30pm.