Leeds Rhinos’ Brad Arthur compared to legendary football manager

Leeds Rhinos are eight games into their Brad Arthur era but it only took five minutes for the club’s Sporting Director Blease to realise he was the man for the job.

One of Blease’s first jobs at Headingley was to find a replacement for Rohan Smith and the Rhinos quickly landed on Brad Arthur, the former Parramatta Eels coach who had ten years of NRL experience to his name.

Blease has now revealed the huge impact that he thinks Arthur is having and could have in the future as he spoke on Leeds Rhinos’ Box 2 Podcast with club legend Jamie Jones-Buchanan.

“In terms of how long it took me, I think I said it at the awards night, it took me about five minutes to realise Brad could make a real difference in this club, which I hope he’s doing, and he is doing,” the club’s Sporting Director explained.

“I can’t wait for him to have a full pre-season with the boys and strengthen the team a little bit along the way, that’s what we’ll do. But he’s a man of honesty and integrity, I picked that up straight away.”

In his eight games so far, Leeds Rhinos have won five and they currently sit outside the play-off places on points difference but with their remaining two fixtures coming on the road to Wigan Warriors and Hull KR, it’s a tough task for Arthur to guide the club to the top six.

Leeds Rhinos boss earns Ferguson comparison

The resurgence of the team under Arthur has seen him already handed a 12-month extension to tie him to the club for 2025, although Ian Blease has admitted that he wanted a longer deal for the man who he has compared to legendary football manager Sir Alex Ferguson.

He explained: “Brad’s still got ambitions in his life and I have and that’s fine and obviously we signed him for another 12 months but I wanted a bit longer but it’s pretty clear for me there were other issues around it.

“Then one day he came to me and told me the reason why, he only wants 12 months, and I got it straight away. I stopped pushing for a bit longer and he said to me, we’ll talk next year about the year after, and I believe that.”

It could well be that the reason why there are the reports linking Arthur with the head coaching role of the NRL’s incoming 18th team based in Papua New Guinea and Perth. Arthur has a reputation down under as building a club and has been linked with that role.

For now though, he’s the Leeds Rhinos coach and he’s earned rave reviews from the players with captain Cam Smith previously urging him to sign a deal and now Ian Blease has compared him to one of sport’s greatest ever managers.

“When you have been around dressing rooms, you get that feeling of that presence of a good man manager and I had that straight away with it within 30 seconds of me speaking to him.

“You wanted to be involved with him and when he’s talking, I could listen to it for hours He’s really endearing that way and a great, great guy and an honest guy.

“I’ll use Alex Ferguson as an example because I’m a Manchester United fan but Alex Ferguson had that edge on him, didn’t he? You wanted to perform for him, but if you didn’t, you’d know he’d be a hard taskmaster. And that’s exactly what Brad is.”

Arthur will have to pull off a miracle comparable to United’s famous 1999 Champions League Final comeback if Leeds are to make the play-offs. They’ll face Wigan on Friday in a must-win game.