Leeds Rhinos’ Ian Blease makes squad admission and confirms pre-season plans

Leeds Rhinos’ sporting director Ian Blease says the club have “freshened up” their squad ahead of pre-season beginning next week.

Five players have come into the club since the Rhinos’ last competitive game of 2024 – at Hull KR on September 20 – with 10 moving on from Leeds to pastures new. Blease, who is in charge of recruitment and retention, feels problem areas have been filled and is playing down the prospect of further additions, but says the option is open if a suitable target becomes available. He told Serious About RL’s sister site The Yorkshire Evening Post: “If anything else comes up, I’d have a look at it, but we are virtually done now, I think.”

Of the ten departed players, five left at the end of their deal, while the others were contracted to Rhinos for next year but saw deals cut short. Leeds’ overseas quota is full so they would need to part company with one of their remaining foreign stars to bring in anyone else from overseas.

Fewer than half – 13 out of 30 – of the players who made an appearance for Leeds’ first team in 2023 remain on the books and Blease isn’t expecting any more players to be released before the campaign begins. “I think the squad we’ve got now is the one we will go with for the start of the year,” he stated.

“But we will have a look if anything crops up that we are interested in. I think we have freshened [the squad] up a bit, which seems to have gone down pretty well.”

Leeds Rhinos make key pre-season training call

Three of the signings – Ryan Hall, Maika Sivo and Jake Connor – are outside-backs. The others, Keenan Palasia and Cooper Jenkins, play in the front-row. Lack of strength in the middle of the field was an obvious issue for Rhinos in 2024 and Blease and coach Brad Arthur were also keen to add more competition for places in the three-quarters.

“The areas we have strengthened were the ones we targeted,” Blease added. “The people who have moved on allowed us to do that so it has all fallen into place a bit. It is up to the new guys to perform now, along with the existing squad.”

Players will be back in for some testing later this week, with pre-season proper beginning next Monday. All training will take place in this country after Rhinos’ management rejected the option of an overseas camp.

“We had a good talk about it,” Blease said of the prospect of warm weather training. “But Brad felt, with the Challenge Cup starting earlier this year, we will do all the groundwork here.”

Two warm-up games have been confirmed, at home to Wakefield Trinity on Boxing Day and against Wigan Warriors at AMT Headingley exactly a month later, on Sunday, January 26, for Ash Handley’s testimonial. Rhinos’ first competitive fixture will be an away Challenge Cup tie against lower division opposition on the weekend of February 8/9, with Betfred Super League beginning the following week.