Leeds Rhinos star reveals what’s changed under Brad Arthur following Wigan Warriors win

Leeds Rhinos star Rhyse Martin has spoken on the club’s ‘confidence’ about their playoff chances and revealed what has changed under new head coach Brad Arthur.

Whilst the Rhinos have won just two of the four games since Arthur took over, the performances have certainly improved with Saturday’s win over Wigan arguably being their best performance all season.

Martin was one of the players who was integral in the 30-4 win over Wigan with the Papua New Guinea international scoring a try and being perfect with the boot, kicking four conversions and a further three penalties to rack up 18 of the 30 points.

His performance was singled out by the Sky Sports pundits and Martin revealed to them that his showing in the loss to Salford inspired such a performance.

He explained: “I was pretty disappointed personally in my performance last week so this week I wanted to focus on what I bring to this team and just emphasise my effort areas and just try and keep working hard for the guys around me.

“Last week I was probably a step off and we had opportunities that I missed there so it was a big focus just to put the energy in there.”

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Leeds Rhinos full of ‘confidence’ for playoff push

That loss to Salford appeared to end any realistic hopes of making the playoffs but losses since then for Catalans and Salford mean Leeds are just four points shy of the top six.

Martin asserted that those in the Leeds camp are certainly not ruling out their playoff chances with the Rhinos looking to kick on at Magic Weekend next week which is hosted across the city at Elland Road.

“No definitely not,” Martin responded when asked if the club had given up on making the playoffs.

“We’ve got a lot of confidence, we’ve got a tough run over the next couple of weeks but I have got full confidence in our team.

“Today is going to boost us even more. We know that we have done ourselves proud today but I think going forward we’ve got to focus on Warrington at Magic which is going to be unreal.”

Brad Arthur’s coaching mantra revealed

The Rhinos were strong outsiders for the game against Wigan but they upset the odds and Rhyse Martin revealed how exactly Arthur had been inspiring the squad.

Injuries and suspension had forced Arthur to name plenty of young players with a debut handed out to Ben Littlewood but Martin explained that there was a concerted effort not to be mentally beaten before the match kicked off, given the disparity in squad strength.

“When you get all the young guys coming in and you lose a bit of experience, the talk in camp was ‘Don’t look at their team sheet, don’t look at who they got on their team and just do your job’.

“We’ve got a five-point plan that we try to achieve every game that Brad’s brought in. That’s just the focus and the trust is just to work hard for your teammates.”

Leeds Rhinos will take on Wigan Warriors again in Round 26 but before then they’ll have to try to earn results against Warrington Wolves and Catalans Dragons.