Leeds Rhinos set for early start to 'hard' pre-season as coach Brad Arthur makes 'got to learn' warning

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Leeds Rhinos’ under-performing players can expect a gruelling pre–season, after failing to qualify for the play-offs in a second successive campaign.

Coach Brad Arthur has promised a long, tough preparation for 2025 and his players will get a taste of what’s to come this week, after the start of their off-season break was delayed. Friday’s 26-16 loss at Hull KR meant Rhinos ended the year on 28 points, from 14 wins and 13 defeats, two points outside the all-important top-six.

That was four points more than they managed in 2023, but Arthur - who took charge in July - admitted missing out of the play-offs is “not good enough”. Pre-season officially begins in November, but the players will be in training over the next couple of weeks.

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“We will review this week, then the following week we will give them a taste for a week of what it’s going to be like,” Arthur revealed. “Then they can have a bit of a break. They’ve got to learn we should be training at this time of year anyway, playing finals [play-offs], so we are going to train.

Disappointment for Rhyse Martin as Leeds Rhinos' season ends in a 26-16 loss at Hull KR. Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com.Disappointment for Rhyse Martin as Leeds Rhinos' season ends in a 26-16 loss at Hull KR. Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com.
Disappointment for Rhyse Martin as Leeds Rhinos' season ends in a 26-16 loss at Hull KR. Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com.
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“We’ll come back and have six weeks leading into our Boxing Day game. It will be hard, but you don’t get anywhere by not working hard. There will be plenty of footy as well, but we will be putting some time and effort into it.”

Of what in particular they will be focussing on, Arthur added: “We have errors in the play-the-ball and that detail, if you do that at training it will find its way on to the field. There’s lots of real simple fundamentals we have got to get on top of and we will be doing them under fatigue.”

He also admitted: “We’ve got to learn how you control a game. That doesn’t just come down to the halves, how you control and build a game. At times when we did build a game we’ve played really well, but we’ve lacked that control to do it all the time.”

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