Brad Arthur sees Leeds Rhinos positives for 2025 as he addresses key error

Brad Arthur sees reasons for encouragement at Leeds Rhinos but he knows they haven’t been good enough. The Rhinos saw their season come to an end on Friday night as they were beaten 26-16 by Hull KR at Craven Park, ensuring they missed out on a top six spot.

It was a game Leeds were in at the break, going into the sheds at the interval with the score tied at 10-10. However, KR flexed their muscles and asserted their dominance in the second half to overpower the visitors, who simply had no answer.

As such the inquest will begin at Headingley this week and while things haven’t always gone Leeds’ way during Arthur’s short time in charge, he sees positive signs moving forward.

“Probably in the start of the second half we beat ourselves,” the Leeds boss said when speaking about the contest at Craven Park. “The effort was there and I’ve had the boys 10 weeks, we’ve had 10 games and nine of them we’ve really had a crack and tried to do the right things, probably the games that we’ve made tough for ourselves, we’ve got a habit of beating ourselves. Against those good teams, we’ve just turned over too much possession early in the second half.

“We have to learn from it but I’m extremely grateful to the club for giving me the opportunity to come over for 10 weeks and the players have been terrific in terms of the buy in. They want to improve for the club. We have a long pre-season ahead of us and some work to do, but I’m happy with their attitude.”

He added: “There’s good signs moving forward for us, but the fact is we’re not playing finals and that’s not good enough.

A turning point in the game came in the first half was Alfie Edgell, who scored Leeds Rhinos’ second try, spilled a high ball in his own in-goal area to allow Peta Hiku to touch down.

“There was errors from the back three but how can I be critical? They’re kids, learning their trade and their effort was there. They’ve done a really good job and it’s part of the experience,” he said.

“[I’ll say] nothing today. It will be part of his (Edgell’s) review moving forward in pre-season. The kid’s everywhere, his effort was everywhere and he wants to win and he’s done more good things than bad things but there was some big moments in the game that come back to bite you. I’m sad for him. He did a lot of good things, more good things than he got wrong.”