New boss Brad Arthur has given an honest, but mixed, assessment of Leeds Rhinos’ full-back Lachie Miller.
The coach insists his Australian pivot does some “good things”, but needs to cut out costly “bloopers” from his game.
Miller tops the Betfred Super League chart for tackle busts, with 144, but has also made 21 errors, including two near Hull KR’s line early in the tackle count last week.
That 20-12 defeat was Arthur’s first as Leeds boss and assessing Miller’s performance, he said: “He did some really good things, but then he had some things in his game which he’d like to remove.
“He is a senior player, he needs to be better than that. He did a lot of good things, we’ve just got to take out a couple of those bloopers he had which took away from his game.”
Miller spent much of his career playing rugby union sevens and had just 19 NRL appearances to his name before joining Leeds in pre-season from Newcastle Knights.
“Errors in his positional play”: Brad Arthur’s verdict on Leeds Rhinos fullback
Credit: Imago Images
Inexperience in the 13-a-side code has shown at times, but Arthur won’t be removing him from the team. “You don’t need to take him out, because you want him in the firing line – he has done a lot of good things for us,” the coach – whose team visit Huddersfield Giants on Thursday – said.
“There’s stuff I can’t coach that he can bring to the team. There were just some detail errors about his positional play; he did a lot of moving and running last week, but wasted a lot of energy unnecessarily.
“I’ve just tidied up what he should be looking for, where he needs to start; he sometimes gets in position a bit late and is covering ground he doesn’t need to. That’s just going to be a bit of work with him around his game sense and what he is actually looking for as it unfolds.”
