Leeds Rhinos' Rohan Smith explains Mickael Goudemand's non-return v Hull KR and Lachie Miller illness latest

The French international made his Rhinos debut in the second-row against Salford Red Devils last week, but was moved to prop for the Betfred Super League round two fixture in East Yorkshire, which Leeds lost 22-12. He played the first 29 minutes before being replaced by Sam Lisone and spent the rest of the game on the bench.

That raised fears he could miss next weekend’s home clash with his former club Catalans Dragons, but Smith confirmed the player was not injured. He said: “It was just situational. He did a great shift at the start of the game. Given we were chasing points, I needed Cameron Smith out on the field and then we were playing with 12 men multiple times, so the blokes coming back on were fresh. One of those was Lisone at the end.”

Rhinos had James Donaldson and Lisone sin-binned and Smith added: “Donno hadn’t been on long so just the way the interchange fell, I needed to manage that. The sin-binnings always throw interchange structure out of the window.”

Centre Harry Newman seemed to be feeling a hamstring in the second half on a heavy pitch, but Smith said there was no issue there. “He got belted a few times,” he noted. “He got winded, but I thought he played a terrific game. He has had two really solid games and he has grown a lot. Maybe we should have extended his contract earlier, I think he is flourishing knowing he is a big part of the picture going forward.”

Leeds were without full-back Lachie Miller who withdrew due to illness an hour before kick-off. Rhinos have a long turnaround to the meeting with Catalans Dragons on Saturday, March 2 and Smith said: “He is not feeling the best so we will see how he is in the next couple of days and then assess for next week.” Meanwhile, Rhins have confirmed the Catalans game will kick off at 3pm. A previously published time of 5.30pm was described as an error in the original fixtures.