Brad Arthur reacts as Leeds Rhinos keep playoff hopes alive

Leeds Rhinos beat Catalans Dragons 18-6 to keep their playoff hopes alive and head coach Brad Arthur has had his say on the performance.

The Rhinos were trailing 6-0 at halftime but showed resilience to come back and defeat the Dragons, who Leeds have now drawn within two points of as they make their push for the top six.

With just four games of the season remaining, including their next two against London Broncos and Hull FC, Leeds have breathed hope into their top-six ambitions.

Speaking to Sky Sports after the game, Brad Arthur gave his assessment, explaining: “I really enjoyed that. I think we’re slowly learning together what it takes to win a game of football. We showed a good level of patience in the second half. We couldn’t get across the line early in that first half, but we didn’t lose our nerve and we just stuck to the approach of the second half.

“We had to be good with our effort. We had to test the opposition’s effort and desire and do that for 80 minutes. Because I feel like for the last six games, these guys have given me everything. The effort’s been there, the physicality’s been there.

“Even in the second half last week, we kept trying hard we just didn’t manage the game to the best of our ability and we had two sin bins which really hurt us.”

Sam Lisone earns credit for Leeds Rhinos

Last week, Leeds Rhinos lost at Magic Weekend to Warrington Wolves with the first half playing out in similar circumstances to the game against Catalans. Just one try separated the teams but this week, it was the Rhinos who scored first in the second half.

That came through David Fusitu’a who scored well in the corner after a period of sustained pressure and Arthur explained how the team were able to build that.

“We talked all week about challenging the line and in the first half, it felt like we walked into the line and then shifted the ball and then we tried to challenge them. We’ve got to go through the front door and we did that in the second half and we got some big men in Sam Lisone and we got a play to them more often than not.”

Whilst they would score three tries in the second half, the ability to keep Catalans out was arguably more impressive and Arthur revealed that was what he was most pleased with, particularly given how vital points difference could be.

The Australian said: “That’s the bit that I’ve really enjoyed, they’ve really bought in over the six weeks to the effort areas of the defence and how important it is and you know you can defend yourself, defend your way to a victory and we did that today because in the first half we gave them some opportunities and the only way they scored is we got some detail wrong on a scrum.

“We should have had six blokes on the long side and we got that wrong and so they’ll learn a good lesson out of it and it wasn’t costly.”