The Leeds Rhinos players massively appreciate the support of the loyal fans – Luke Gale

All our season ticket holders were entitled to a rebate because of the matches they won’t be able to attend this year, but 85 per cent of them have either turned the money down or asked for it to go towards the cost of their pass for the next three campaigns.

That is a fantastic effort and, on behalf of all the players, I want to say how much we appreciate it.

The fans have got behind the club and I think every time a bit of adversity comes along the supporters are the first ones to give back.

They can see the club is in need and the game is in need.

They’ve done it tough and so have the fans, paying for a service they haven’t really had, so it’s a credit to them.

It is massive and we are very grateful as players and the club is as a whole.

It is a shame fans won’t be in the ground when we get back under way against Huddersfield on Sunday but, hopefully, it won’t be too long before we can play in front of a crowd.

It has been a long time ‘between drinks’, almost five months since our last game, but everyone is excited and raring to go.

This has been our third week of training and it feels a bit different in camp to the first two.

They were intense, but you can sense a different kind of atmosphere this week because it is game week. The atmosphere has gone up a bit, the wait is almost over and we are ready to get into it now.

It has been a good build-up for us, I think the team is looking good and we are in a good spot.

There’s only a certain amount of training you can do and we are ready for a game now.

That’s the only way we can improve, so we’re looking forward to Sunday.

We’ve not focused on the behind-closed-doors aspect of it or the fact we’ll have to do some things before and after the game differently because of new restrictions brought in to stop coronavirus.

It’s Huddersfield’s home game and we are in the away changing rooms, but they are class at Headingley so that’s not a problem and we know it will still be in a good environment.

Atmosphere-wise, it will be more like training, where you can hear yourself and everything that’s going on, than a Super League game, but most of us have come through academy rugby when there’s not many people watching so it is nothing we haven’t experienced before.

I’ve played in academy matches in front of 20 people and that doesn’t faze me. It is the same for both teams and I know people on the outside will think we have an advantage with the game being at Headingley but, in my opinion, that isn’t the case because there’ll be no crowd.

Take the fans out of it and it’s just a field of grass.

The good thing – for both teams – is the pitch is in unreal nick at the moment.

I know there was a lot of bad press at the start of the season, from myself included.

It was like Blackpool beach, but we’ve trained on it a couple of times this week and, if you can’t play on that, you can’t play anywhere.

It is a great stadium and we’ll be playing on a carpet so both teams are going to love it.

We had to be happy with the Cup draw this week, a bye and then home to Hull KR – who we were going to play anyway before it was redone – in the quarter-finals.

I do feel for Cas and Wakey who have to play in the sixth round.

Cas have drawn Hull FC again and, in the five years I spent there, I think we only drew Hull FC or St Helens.

I can see why they feel a bit aggrieved, but there was going to be four teams that had to play an extra game and, unfortunately, Cas and Wakey – who play Catalans – have got the tough draws.

They’d have loved to get the bye to the next round like we have so, all in all, it was quite kind to us.

That said, Hull KR will be tough and we know we’ll have to play well to get through to the semi-finals.

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