Leeds Rhinos: Winning ugly is the key to title hopes '“ Moon

Rhinos have proved they can do it, with half of their six victories this season being by an unconverted try or less.

But they have lost by a single point twice to top-four sides Castleford Tigers and Wigan Warriors and Moon insisted those are the games they need to come out on top in.

Rhinos, who are fifth in the table, travel to sixth-placed Hull tonight and with another tense encounter expected Moon said Rhinos have to handle the pressure.

“We need to win these tight ones,” Moon warned.

“It is getting closer and tighter and teams are playing better.

“It is a lot tougher, the comp. We’ve lost a few games just by a couple of points and we drew against Huddersfield and we need to be winning games like that and finishing games off.

“That’s what we need to be working on.”

Rhinos led 8-0 with 10 minutes remaining against Wigan last week, but collapsed to a 9-8 defeat which cost them a chance of going second in the table.

The champions have not lost back-to-back league games since May, 2016, when they were on a run of seven defeats in all competitions.

But Hull’s form has been improving and Moon admitted Leeds will need to dig deep to keep in touch with the all-important top-four.

“They have been good,” he said of tonight’s hosts.

“They have a lot going for them so it’ll be a tough game.

“We’ve been good at bouncing back with a win after a loss so hopefully we can go over to Hull and get the win and get a bit of consistency going.

“Last week I don’t think we were anywhere near our best in offense. We were a bit soft, but I think that comes with playing so many games in a short space of time. Over the Easter period everyone’s a bit low so we have to prepare well and bounce back.”

After dominating for an hour against Wigan and only scoring one try, Moon admitted Rhinos’ attack needs to be much sharper tonight.

“There’s a few good things,” he said.

“Our defence was good at times, they threw a lot at us and we kept them to one try, but obviously we need to score more points than that and we’ve been working on that this week.”

Moon and half-back partner Richie Myler will have their hands full against Hull’s Albert Kelly and Marc Sneyd, but the stand-off believes their partnership is developing.

“He has been awesome, very good at what he does,” Moon said of Myler.

“He is controlling the team well and we are running off the back of that.

“We just need to keep building on that and working on combinations at training and playing with him. It is working well.

“We went through a bit of a tough period with injuries, we had some front-rowers missing, but they are starting to slowly come back and once we get a full team on the field we’ll be pretty good.

“We’ve just got to string some games together.”

Moon has been linked with a return to the NRL in his native Australia, but said he would like to stay at Leeds.