Leeds Rhinos: We’ll work hard to fix things up, insists Brett Ferres

The 18-16 home loss to London Broncos three days ago was their sixth in seven games this season and left Rhinos second from bottom in Betfred Super League.

Rhinos’ slump has been one of the dominant stories in rugby league over recent years and Ferres admitted their current form is not good enough for such a “massive club”.

He said: “That’s the reason I came here, that and the winning culture and the history they have.

“The shirt weighs heavily here and expectations are a lot greater, but we are good solid group, we will stick together and work hard.

“We have got a great club and a great coaching staff and I am sure results will come.

“We are by no way a million miles away, we’ve just got to fix a few little areas up, but they are critical areas for us at the moment.”

Ferres went on: “I’ve been in this situation before at various clubs and it is really tough.

“Your backs are against the wall and everyone’s against you.

“The fans want results and we are in the same situation, we want to turn it around.

“It is certainly disappointing, but we get paid to do a job and we have to knuckle down and keep working hard and fix those little areas up.

“Consistency is the one for us – if you give teams an opportunity they are all good teams in Super League now and they’ll take it.

“On the flip side of that, we are not taking the chances we are creating.”

Leeds were within two minutes of a precious win on Friday, but could not close the game out from what should have been a winning position.

They have led in every game this year, other than the round one defeat at Warrington Wolves, but managed to hang on only once.

“It’s been the same all season,” admitted Ferres.

“We have played well in patches against very good teams.

“We have been doing it, it has been there, but we can’t knock a full 80-minute performance off.

“We have clocked off in a few areas and that’s what has burned us.

“We played all right [on Friday] for 75 minutes and probably did enough to win that game, but you clock off for five minutes at the end and a team gets you. Fair play to London, they stuck at it and they got the reward at the end.”

Trailing 8-0 at the break, Rhinos hit back to lead 16-8 with a quarter of the game remaining.

Asked if they could take heart from that spell, Ferres said: “We have got to take something out of it.

“It can’t all be negative all the time.

“There were some positives there, we looked better defensively, we weren’t broken as often.

“We tightened up and our right-edge in particular looked better. That was better than previous weeks, but we are still a bit off the finished article.

“What we have got to do is stick together, work hard and we will come through the other side.”

Rhinos are away to Catalans Dragons on Saturday and then face Castleford Tigers at Emerald Headingley five days later.

“It never gets easier,” Ferres said. “But that’s the way it goes, we are a big club and a good team and we’ve got some very good players.

“We are a great group and we’ve got a great coaching staff.

“We all believe in each other, we are here to do a job and that’s what will happen.

“We’ve been in spells like this before and come through and I’ve no doubt we will again.”

Meanwhile, England academy forward Sam Walters bagged a brace of tries in his first game since signing from Widnes Vikings when Rhinos crushed Broncos under-19s 64-10 at Stanningley. Iwan Stephens and Tom Barton also crossed twice and Leeds’ other try scorers were Joe Burton, Liam Whitton, Loui McConnell, Corey Johnson and Liam Tindall. Harvey Spence kicked 10 goals.