Leeds Rhinos preparing for the ‘toughest challenge’ in Super League at leaders St Helens

RECENT IMPROVEMENTS will be put to the ultimate test tomorrow when Leeds Rhinos face the “toughest challenge” in Betfred Super League.
Upbeat interim Leeds Rhinos coach, Richard Agar. PIC: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.comUpbeat interim Leeds Rhinos coach, Richard Agar. PIC: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
Upbeat interim Leeds Rhinos coach, Richard Agar. PIC: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
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Rhinos showed signs of getting their game together in the back-to-back wins over London Broncos and Wakefield Trinity and last week’s narrow loss to Wigan Warriors.

Pack man Trent Merrin. PIC: Bruce Rollinson/JPIMediaPack man Trent Merrin. PIC: Bruce Rollinson/JPIMedia
Pack man Trent Merrin. PIC: Bruce Rollinson/JPIMedia

Tomorrow’s hosts, St Helens, didn’t do Rhinos any favours when an under-strength side was beaten by London earlier this month and Leeds remain deep in relegation danger, but interim coach Richard Agar is upbeat about what they can achieve, if realistic over their latest task.

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“It is the toughest challenge in the game at the moment,” Agar said. “They rested six of their very best players at London the other week, but I don’t think they will do that this week.

“I think they saw the benefits of that when they played Huddersfield last Friday. They were on the back of a very surprising loss, but the energy some of those guys came out with was very impressive.”

But Agar insisted: “Honestly, it is a challenge we are looking forward to. While we didn’t get the result the other night we certainly know the areas we need to get better in.

Ava Seumanufagai. PIC: Jonathan Gawthorpe/JPIMediaAva Seumanufagai. PIC: Jonathan Gawthorpe/JPIMedia
Ava Seumanufagai. PIC: Jonathan Gawthorpe/JPIMedia

“We absolutely earned the right for field position in the second half with some first-class defence, aggressive defence and great kick pressure. We dominated field position – Trent [Merrin] and Ava [Seumanufagai] got held up over the line, we were creating chances.

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“But, given the weight of possession, our kicking game wasn’t what we wanted. It is very easy to zero in on our kickers, but we have talked about more people need to play on kick plays, don’t just expect the kicker to put it where it needs to go.

“We need people around him with good movement and good shape and different options in our team, rather than just hanging, drawing and quartering our kickers.”

Even so, Agar wants to see more quality with the boot tonight. He added: “Having said that, we can’t get away from the fact some of our kicks weren’t up to standard and some of them showed a distinct lack of patience.

“Donno [James Donaldson] kicked away on play three, Sutty [Liam Sutcliffe] kicked away on play three. We have just got to get teams to the end of our sets and keep building pressure through sets.

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“We took some poor options last week and there was one of our sets when I think we tried three or four barge-overs. That is really not smart team play. If the guys see it and come up with it, that’s great, but three times in a set? I think we need to be asking more questions than that.

“That will come down to some work we need to do on the training field.”

During the early weeks of Agar’s reign attack has taken a back seat in training to working on preventing the opposition scoring.

“Our priority has been trying to shore our defence up,” he acknowledged. “Undoubtedly we are taking terrific steps in that direction and I thought the commitment to each other last week was fantastic.”

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Rhinos will need to grab whatever chances come their way this evening, but Agar believes their attacking plan does work when they put it together.

“At times this year there has been some very good effort, but it was self-centred, not team-based,” he reflected. “It’s about getting our key positions on the same page and getting everyone playing well, but playing play-on-play.

“You can’t be having one crack and then putting your cue in the rack for the rest of the set. We have to ask the right questions for that play.

“We did come up with a couple of tries last week how we thought we would.

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“We thought Wigan would be a difficult team to shift around, their edge defence was strong and aggressive and we thought we might have to get them late in the set by playing flat and fast through the middle and finding some passes back on the inside.

“We scored two and there were the two from Mez and Ava that were chalked off. We did plan for that a bit. We highlighted George Williams before the game and I thought he was pretty quiet. That’s not a slight on George, it’s a real testament to our D [defence].

“We had the one slip-up from Harry [Newman] when he got caught ball watching and just opened enough of a line for Oliver Gildart to run his play and get past him on the outside, but he will learn from that. I thought how quiet George was was credit to our defence so there is plenty to build on.”