Top-2 admission made as Leeds Rhinos' Brad Arthur says 'haven't earned that right' ahead of St Helens game
Leeds Rhinos boss Brad Arthur has made an honest admission about the title race ahead of tomorrow’s (Friday) big game at St Helens.
A five-match winning run has lifted Rhinos to third in Betfred Super League, four points behind Wigan Warriors and six adrift of leaders Hull KR. The bookies now make Leeds third-favourites to win October’s Grand Final, but Arthur reckons they aren’t top-two material yet - and insists the race for play-off spots is wide open.
“They deserve the positions they hold and the credibility they get from everybody else,” Arthur said of Hull KR and Wigan. “We haven't earned that right yet, we have still got a bit of work to do.
“We have another tough game this week, against Saints and anyone who wants to discount them is silly. There are a few other teams - Wakefield haven’t had the results go their way the last couple of games, but they're making a real fist of it, Hull FC are doing a really good job and Leigh are under the radar a bit.
“I feel like the competition is pretty strong. Castleford are on the improve so there are lots of teams who think they’re in with a chance of getting themselves into a play-off position. Once you get into those stages, anything can happen. We are a long way from there and a long way from our best.”
Rhinos lost at Saints in a Challenge Cup tie in March, but began their current winning run with a 17-4 success against tomorrow’s hosts at Magic Weekend last month. In contrast to Rhinos, Saints are missing some first-choice players through injury, but Arthur is predicting another battle.
“Their strength is, they are physical - that is what we are expecting,” he warned. “The last time we played them they really came after us and made some real tough work for us early, so we are expecting nothing different.”
The victory at Newcastle was only Rhinos’ second in 20 meetings with Saints and Arthur feels it stood them in good stead for the following four wins. “It’s easy to look back now and say that, but I think it did help us,” he stressed.
“It was on the back of the week before when we played Hull KR and had them in a good spot and we fell over at the last hurdle. When we got to the Saints game and a similar situation, we learned from the previous week and kicked on from there. Since then, in every game we’ve had to really fight and struggle and be in it at the 70th minute and either come from behind or hang on.
“It was only last weekend [against Warrington Wolves] that we got a little bit of luxury after scoring three tries in 10 minutes at the start of the second half. It was nice to know in the last 15 minutes we’d got the job done and we were able to make a few positional changes and plan for a bit of chaos that might happen later on down the track. I thought we handled that okay, probably a bit better than we did against Wakefield [in the previous game].”