'We'll get back on it': Leeds Rhinos star Jarrod O'Connor's defiant pledge v Huddersfield Giants

O’Connor has pledged a positive response to Rhinos’ 20-12 defeat at Hull KR, which was their fourth loss in seven Betfred Super League matches this year.

Rhinos have a long turnaround to the visit of Huddersfield Giants Huddersfield Giants and O’Connor insisted they are determined to make every second of it count.

“Conditions weren’t the best, but that’s not really an excuse for a performance that wasn’t to our standard,” O’Connor said of the disappointment in East Yorkshire, which came six days after an outstanding win over Catalans Dragons.

“We’ll look at the game, move on quickly and get ready for Huddersfield on Sunday. We need to review it, learn from it and move on.

“We can’t dwell on it too long. That’s what we were good at last year - after games we should have won we were very good at moving on and not letting it bother us.

“That’s why we started to get some performances and hopefully we can kick on and get a few better ones. I am sure we’ll get back on it [this] week.”

Rhinos trailed 14-0 at half-time and conceded again in the opening minute of the second period, after Hull KR regained possession from their kick-off, which left them with too much to do.

It finished three tries to two and the number 14 admitted they can’t afford a similar number of errors this week.

“It was disappointing,” O’Connor added. “But we still had a lot of belief that we were going to get back in the game.

“We back our attack from anywhere on the field. I don’t think we had a problem with our attack, it was handling errors; getting up the field I felt we were all right, but obviously that’s something we’ve got to keep working on .

“Hopefully by the end of the season we are in that form so we can go on a good run and make sure we are in the play-offs.”

With his understudy Corey Johnson being named as 18th man, O’Connor played the full game and stressed in terms of match time, it’s a case of the more the merrier as far as he is concerned.

“I am loving playing 80 minutes,” he reflected. “I want to do it, I feel like the longer the game goes on, I get into it more.”

This year teams play only once over the holiday period with the rivals round being spread across the weekend from Thursday - when Castleford Tigers take on Wakefield Trinity - to Sunday.

In the past, sides have played twice in four or five days and O’Connor said: “I’ve never played in both, but some of the lads have said it’s tough on your body.

“It doesn’t really bother us, whatever the schedule is we’ll prepare right and that’s what we’ll make sure we do for Sunday.

“It [the long turnaround] is good to refresh, regroup and get a good, hard week of training to put us in good stead.”