Vital 'next step' revealed by Leeds Rhinos coach Brad Arthur ahead of Magic Weekend showdown v St Helens
The next step Leeds Rhinos must take to become a top team has been revealed by coach Brad Arthur.
Rhinos face St Helens at Betfred Super League’s Magic Weekend in Newcastle tomorrow (Saturday) and Arthur wants to see evidence they have learned lessons from painful losses to potential play-off rivals. Leeds dominated much of last week’s 20-14 defeat by table-topping Hull KR and were 14-6 ahead as late as the 65th minute, but couldn’t get the job done.
It was a similar story against Warrington Wolves a month earlier and Arthur also felt the 22-14 Challenge Cup reverse at TW Stadium in March was a game Rhinos could and should have won.
“We have pushed a lot of those top teams to the limit and just haven’t gone on with the job,” he admitted ahead of the round 10 fixture at St James’ Park. “That’s the next progression we are chasing.
“Instead of just being competitive in those games, we want to come out the other side. Hopefully we have learned from last week. We put ourselves in a really strong, commanding position and maybe we just got a bit shy at the back end of the game and didn’t continue to go after it.
“I would much rather the guys continue to go after it when we get ourselves in a [dominant] position and if we get a few things wrong, we can learn from it. Last week we didn’t go after that last little bit and we haven’t got anything to learn from. We didn’t get anything overly wrong, because we didn’t go after it.”
Arthur is confident Rhinos are heading in the right direction, though that hasn’t always been reflected in their results. He insisted: “I am happy they understand the style of football we want to play.
“We are good at all the basic fundamentals of the game - missed tackles, completions rates. We didn’t have great field position last week, but we’ve been really good at that. Systematically we’ve been really good - and physically and effort-wise. It is just learning how to win those tight occasions.”
Saints - who have won 18 of the sides’ last 19 meetings, stretching back to 2018 - are on the back of a 32-18 defeat at Warrington Wolves last week. By their standards, it has been a disappointing start to the campaign, but Arthur stressed: “It is not my job to decide how well or poorly they think they are playing. That’s up to them.
“What I know is they are a good team and good teams don’t put back-to-back bad performances together. They will be hurting from it so we are expecting a good contest. It is a big occasion, Magic round and that will get every team up.
“For us, at the moment it is about where we are at and how do we take that next step? We have shown good signs of improvement, but the next step is not just being competitive in games, it is icing those games.”