Leeds Rhinos full-back Lachie Miller started his first game for over six months following an injury-hit end to his 2024 campaign.
The 30-year-old missed the final two games of last season with a hamstring issue before injuring his calf during 2025’s pre-season.
However, it wasn’t a dream start, with the Rhinos losing out 22-14 to St Helens on Friday night and not making the final eight of the Challenge Cup.
Talking to Leeds Rhinos’ media after the match, the full-back was happy to get back into the starting line-up but was ultimately disappointed with the loss.
He said: “Yeah, disappointing, that’s two years in a row out of the Challenge Cup at that same stage to the same team.
“However, I’m pretty stoked that I got through the 80 minutes, it’s been a while, it’s been six months since my first injury.”
Miller shared about the progress he’s made in the off-season and feels he’s in a better spot than he was before his injury last season.
He added:Â “I felt good, I’ve done quite a fair bit of work to get my body into better shape than last year but also knew that 80 minutes against Saints was going to be a tough task.”
Reflecting on their performance, the Leeds Rhinos man felt that his side held their own for most of the game but it came down to their slow start to the second half where they lost the game.
He said: “It’s hard to say this because we’ve just lost but I do feel like for the majority of the game, we were on top of them.
“I felt like we were playing good footy and a couple of mistakes let us down.
“There was probably a 15-minute period in that game which you can’t do against anyone, let alone Saints so we let ourselves down there.”
It was the first time that Miller, Jake Connor, Brodie Croft and Andy Ackers have ever played together as the spine for the club so Miller admitted that it will take time to work on those partnerships as a group.
He added:Â “Obviously, we’ve got the efforts there, you can see it.
“Our defence is much better than what it has been, it’s just those little things like tonight.
“These things don’t just happen, you’ve got to work at it so we’ve got to work out our combinations going forward.
“It’s just unfortunate that we’ve lost tonight.”
Leeds host Wigan Warriors next in Super League on Saturday late afternoon and Miller admitted that they need to reflect quickly and simply move on.
He finished: “We’ve just got to flush this. Obviously, we can’t do anything about it now, we can’t get a wildcard back into the Cup so we’ve got to put this behind us and march on with our season.
“It’s a long season and there’s still another trophy to play for, which is what we’ve got to start focusing on.”
