
Leeds Rhinos captain Cam Smith believes there is little to stop the team this season, so long as their focus remains on themselves.
Smith is ‘sure’ that Leeds Rhinos will be “competing at the end of the year” so long as the team’s focus remains on themselves and their identity with the club’s co-captain making that claim in an interview given to the Sportsman Rugby League YouTube channel.
That interview also saw former Man of Steel and Leeds Rhinos’ 2024 standout player Brodie Croft provide the perfect analogy for the club’s up-and-down 2024 season.
“There definitely were moments there when we looked like world beaters and then moments where it looked like the world was beating us,” argued Croft as he claimed the club have “reset from that” and are now putting in the hard yards to ensure they aren’t at the wrong end of that spectrum in 2025.
The talk from Headingley over the off-season has been about the intensity of the pre-season with Brad Arthur leading the club in his first full year after joining for the final ten games of the 2024 season.
Croft was no different in his assessment as he explained: “We’ve had a good first stint of pre-season so far in BA’s first choice to set some groundwork and foundations that he wants us to deliver upon. I think the boys are really buying into it and it’s exciting where the season can take us.”
Leeds Rhinos co-captain makes clear statement on club’s 2025 season

Credit: Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com
Whilst the intensity has been well-documented, club legend Ryan Hall has revealed that it is the direction and the focus of the off-season training that has enthused him so much upon his return to Headingley. Hall has returned to Leeds Rhinos after leaving the club at the end of the 2017 season and he’s delighted to be home again/
Super League’s record try-scorer said: “Rolling back the years certainly, I’m in the Blue and Amber again. I enjoyed my time doing what I did before this but I’m glad to be home now because it is home really. I’m a Leeds lad.”
On the pre-season, he said: “It’s tough and that’s what you want but you don’t want to be blindly running for the sake of it. He’s added some direction to it, he’s said we’ll be doing X, Y, Z for the reasons of X, Y, Z, so it all makes sense and that’s what you want as a player – to be going in the right direction and have purpose behind it, so it’s good. I think he’s doing a good job so far.”
C0-captain Smith echoed the sentiments of the tough pre-season but believes the club are in a far better place for it with his ultimate claim being that only Leeds Rhinos can stop Leeds Rhinos, so long as their focus remains internal
He said: “There’s been a lot of change with Brad Arthur coming in halfway through the year last year. We’ve had chance to have a full pre-season under him and it’s been really tough so far. There’s been a lot of turnover in players too and I think we’re in a really good spot.
“If we focus on us, we’ll be there at the end of the year. Even though last year was disappointing, a couple more wins in the games that we should have won and we’d have probably been in the play-offs at the back end of the year.
“If we focus on us, I’m sure we’ll be competing at the end of the year.”
Leeds Rhinos will play host to Wests Warriors in the Challenge Cup before facing off against Wakefield Trinity in Round One of Super League.
