Leeds Rhinos’ slow start is not a cause for concern yet – Peter Smith

But it’s fair to say, for Leeds Rhinos tonight’s home fixture against Catalans Dragons is a ‘things will seem a lot brighter and everyone will be much happier if they do win’-type of game.

Rhinos, one of five teams without a victory from the opening two Betfred Super League rounds, have had a tough start and so far, after an encouraging pre-season, their luck doesn’t seem to have improved significantly from last year.

Having got through training unscathed, they have picked up injuries every time the team has stepped on to a playing field in 2022, losing Tom Holroyd, Sam Walters and Harry Newman in pre-season, plus Richie Myler and David Fusitu’a – at least – during the opening two rounds.

On top of that, they’ve had a sending-off and two sin-binnings in their competitive matches and, since the Boxing Day game against Wakefield Trinity, a total of four suspensions. So a squad that was close to full strength ahead of round one will be missing six players in round three, with another couple in doubt.

The longer any team goes without a win, the more nervous everyone concerned gets, but at this stage Rhinos don’t have too much cause for concern.

Despite the two-point loss, they played very well against Warrington Wolves in their season-opener, were the better team and, with a bit of luck, could have won, despite being down to 12 players for three-quarters of the match and 11 for a 10-minute spell.

There was evidence Leeds would be a tough team to beat this year, but unfortunately, it did not look that way last week at Wigan Warriors.

Rhinos were good for 20 minutes or so, but then collapsed in alarming fashion and the 34-12 final scoreline was a fair reflection.

However, Warrington were third in the table last year and Wigan fourth and even after tonight, fifth-placed Rhinos won’t have played anyone who finished below them in 2021.

With home advantage, Warrington was very much a winnable game, but Wigan would expect – despite two defeats last year – to come out on top more often than not against Leeds on their own turf.

Rhinos have a strong home record against Catalans, with 13 wins from 17 meetings, but the French side are on a four-match winning run in meetings between the sides, two of those at Headingley.

They are without four first-choice forwards – Gil Dudson and Dylan Napa through suspension, Julian Bousquet who is recovering from a broken arm and Mickael Goudemand following a failed head injury assessment. They are on a short turnaround, from Saturday to Thursday and form in the first two games – a defeat at St Helens and narrow home win over Wakefield – hasn’t been particularly impressive.

That makes it a hard game to call, but a lot was made in pre-season about the strength and depth of Rhinos’ squad and now is the time for players outside the top-20 to prove their worth.

They will need to be a lot better tonight than they were six days ago, because, even against a weakened Dragons forward pack, Leeds won’t win if they repeat their performance from the final 60 minutes at DW Stadium.

Victory would send Leeds into next Thursday’s tricky derby at Wakefield in a much happier frame of mind, but another defeat adds a bit of pressure.

It wouldn’t be catastrophic though. As the cliche says, trophies are not won or lost in February/March. Leeds lost five of their first seven league fixtures last year and still managed to finish fifth. A run of three or four straight wins would certainly turn the tables.

Last week was the first time half-backs Blake Austin and Aidan Sezer had played together in a competitive game for Rhinos and once they find their feet and the team gets up to full-strength in the outside-backs, Leeds will have enough firepower to trouble most teams.

At this stage there’s nothing going wrong that can’t be fixed, but the fans who made the trip to Wigan last week were excellent and deserved better and Rhinos need to start replaying them tonight.

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