'Need to be better collectively': Leeds Rhinos' Richie Myler on inconsistency, bad starts and frantic rugby

Last week’s 20-6 defeat at Leigh Leopards ended Rhinos’ two-match winning run and they go into this week’s international break with a 50 per cent success rate.

Once again, Leeds got off to a poor start, trailing 10-0 after as many minutes and being 16 points down at the end of the first quarter.

The rest of the game was evenly-contested, with Rhinos scoring the only other try. They improved defensively and had spells of pressure, but played panic rugby at times and failed to really test a strong Leopards defence.

“I think it shows where we’re at after 10 games,” Myler said of Rhinos’ fifth loss of 2023. “We can be great one week and a little bit off the next.

“Collectively, we need to do it together for longer. We had periods in that game where collectively we were doing it well and we felt the momentum, but - again - we got our start wrong.

“If you give teams 16 points’ start, at some point you are going to stop running teams down. We just need to be better collectively, across the board.”

Myler started in his regular full-back role before switching into the halves for the second period, following an injury to Aidan Sezer.

The same tactic paid off the week before against Hull FC and Myler insisted: “We know we are a good team.

“We know we are a strong team together. I don’t think anybody will be proud of their performance so we go away, regroup and work hard.

“We’ve got two weeks to stress and lick our wounds a bit, but Leigh are playing some good rugby and asking a lot of questions.

“Right to left is definitely their strongest play and they asked a lot of questions of us and, unfortunately, we didn’t have the answers.

“I don’t think we were a million miles off for the whole game, but our start - I just don’t think we did it together for long enough.”

Myler stressed: “Obviously our fans are disappointed, but we are as well.

“We are a tight group and we want to work hard. We went to Leigh to put a performance on and unfortunately we didn’t match their intensity at the beginning for long enough, collectively enough. Unfortunately, it wasn’t good enough.”

Leeds return to action at home to Salford Red Devils on Friday, May 5. Myler added: “I think it gives us time to freshen up.

“We’ve done 10 games now and had some good performances and a couple of not so good ones.

“You never want to wait too long before the next one, because you can dwell on it, but I think we need a few days’ rest, then we come back to work.

“We’ve got a really tough test against Salford after the break. That’s going to be another big one, they love to throw the ball around and ask a lot of questions and we need to do it collectively, for longer and not chase the scoreboard.

“We need to match their intensity from the beginning and not get into that erratic, frantic style of throwing the ball around anywhere. That’s not individuals, it’s a collective effort - across the board we all need to be better.

“In some games we’ve played really well together, we’ve had the game plan and the way we want to play and we’ve executed really well and matched the intensity of the opposition.

“[On Friday] we didn’t do that and what happens is you chase the game. We chased it a bit too much and unfortunately came out on the wrong end of the result. We will regroup a