Leeds Rhinos reaction: coach 'extremely proud' but not surprised after stunning 14-8 win at Hull KR

Rhinos trailed 8-0 at half-time, but dominated the second period to complete their first win in seven attempts against the Betfred Super League leaders and new Challenge Cup holders. The victory lifted Leeds back into third on the table and set up another huge game on Friday, at home to fifth-placed St Helens.

"I'm extremely proud," Arthur said in his post-match press conference. "I saw a bit of belief in them during the week, the way we trained. We had a good, long turnaround and I sensed a bit of expectation, that they thought they were coming here to win. Even at half-time, we were 8-0 down, but we weren't bad - we were very good in the first half, but they were very, very good.

“We said to beat them, we had to be very, very good in the second half and we were. Credit to both teams, the footy was end-to-end, there wasn’t a lot of errors and the ball in play was pretty high.”

Rhinos were pipped 20-14 at home by Hull KR three months ago, after being the better side for most of the game. Arthur stressed: “The last time we played them we had them with 10 minutes to go and should have won, we should have kicked on, but probably just lacked a bit of composure at times in the last 10 minutes.

“They came up with some big plays and we went into our shell a bit, trying to protect the lead. But we learned from it and we went after it today. When we got in front, we kept playing. You don’t get anything unless you work hard. It [the victory] was on the back of hard work.”

It was Hull KR’s second defeat of the season, in all competitions and their first to a team other than Wigan Warriors since the same weekend last year. Rhinos are now only two points behind second-placed Wigan. Arthur insisted he isn’t looking at the table and all his focus is on the next game.

He said: “We’re still not there yet, we have got a bit of work to do. If we want to start talking about that [being in title contention] we need to prove it this week. We have got a five-day turnaround, we can sit here and feel good about ourselves or we can move on and worry about our next opponents, who are playing some footy and pretty much embarrassed us two weeks ago.”