Leeds Rhinos sweat on match review panel as coach says 'not much in' sin-bins v Salford Red Devils

Loose-forward Keenan Palasia was sin-binned, for the second successive game, on the first tackle of Rhinos’ 28-0 win and Mikolaj Oledzki received a yellow card 16 minutes after half-time. Both players were accused of shoulder contact to the head of an opponent, after the incidents were studied by video referee Liam Moore.

Palasia’s involvement in Leeds’ previous fixture, at Warrington Wolves, also ended with a sin-binning following a similar accusation, though he was not charged when the review panel studied the game. The panel will meet on Monday to review Betfred Super League round seven and a grade D charge for either player would mean a two-match ban, but Arthur insisted he “didn’t see much” in the incidents.

He said: “I didn’t think [Palasia’s tackle against Warrington] was sin-binnable either. We keep talking about making sure we are low in our target area and we are keeping our hands up and they are ready to get into contact. I felt like technically they did what I asked them to do. If you’ve got a smaller body and lower body position…I will have to watch the replay, but I didn’t think there was much in it.”

Asked what else he can ask his players to do, Arthur admitted: “I don’t know. They’ve done what I’ve asked them to do. We’ve worked on lowering our target area so we are tackling safe and it’s a better zone to hit with anyway, with our shoulders. I don’t know what more they could do there.”

There was one positive from the yellow cards, according to the coach. “We got to practice some systems in defence,” he said. “We have been working on a bit of composure as well. After the first tackle of the game we were down to 12, but we didn’t lose our way, we defended well and played good field position with 12 men.”