Leeds to debut six players against Catalans, reveals Richard Agar

Leeds Rhinos head coach Richard Agar has revealed he is set to hand debuts to six players when the club take on Catalans on Wednesday.

The Rhinos have made wholesale changes to their 21-man squad, as they also continue to prepare for Saturday’s Challenge Cup semi-final against Wigan.

It’s given Agar an opportunity to reward several younger squad members with their maiden first-team appearances, which he admitted is always a memorable moment for both the players and himself.

“I’ve coached for a long time but I can pertinently remember every player I’ve ever given a debut to,” Agar said. “It is a real good experience and a wonderful position to be in to deliver that type of news.

“We usually do a shirt presentation, we invite the families in. That’s very different at the minute with Covid and being in our bubble, so we’ve sort of lost that ability to do our normal bits.

“We’ve got, I think, six debutants tomorrow, so we spoke to the families, some of the junior coaches, we put some videos together.

“We played some really emotional messages from the parents, the siblings, the girlfriends and everybody that’s played a part on their way through. So there’s some real good stuff in there.

“Don’t forget there’s two old international props in there in Karl Harrison and Terry O’Connor, and you could obviously tell which one of them is a TV pundit for a living. He had some vision, some backdrop, it was very well stage managed from Terry.

“But it was a really nice touch for those young guys too. They’re a representation of everything that’s gone before them – the teammates they’ve played with at their junior clubs, obviously the parents and the families, the schools they’ve come from.

“Their mates and everybody will be looking out for them tomorrow and their names will forever be etched on that heritage board with a number for Leeds Rhinos, which in itself is a remarkable achievement and honour.”

With over a quarter of the squad named being teenagers, tomorrow night will give Rhinos fans a glimpse into the club’s future and that fact is very much at the forefront of Agar’s mind.

16-year-old Levi Edwards, for example, has been fast-tracked into the first team from scholarship level and while he’s unlikely to feature against the Dragons, Agar believes the experience he’ll have this week will have a huge impact on his long-term development.

He added: “Moving forward we’re going to have to get some of these players through our pathway. A number of them have come close on occasions and as myself and Kevin are looking to the future and how we shape our squad, it’s a great way to make a first impression.

“We really believe in them, I think that is important to say. While we haven’t had to change our team too much since coming back from the Covid break, we do anticipate having to do that moving forward and as we’re making recruitment decisions, we definitely want to pencil some of these names in.

“It will be a good experience for Levi (Edwards). We’ve recently contracted a couple of kids from our scholarship in Levi and Morgan Gannon that we think are tremendous young talents.

“We made the call to bring him in early, I guess to get hold of him and shape his professional career from a real young age.

“It’s just a good experience for him to be in and around the matchday squad. It’s highly unlikely that he’ll play, he’s still 16-years-of-age. We would like him to spend a little bit more time with us (before debuting).

“So we’ve named him in the squad, obviously he’s been part of the preparations all week. We’ll get him to warm up on gameday too but it’s unlikely he’ll play a part tomorrow.

“Loui McConnell is another one that we talk about. Loui’s been an absolute standout through both scholarship and academy.

“He was a guy that we kept on to play at reserve grade because we felt that he was absolutely a player worth keeping in our system.

“He’s still very young in terms of being a front rower, and size-wise he’s still got a bit of growing to do yet but we felt that his performances, his attitude, the skills he possesses as a real natural rugby league player, we wanted to keep Loui in our system.

“Unfortunately reserve grade is no more this season and is unlikely next season, so Featherstone have picked Loui up to take into their squad. But we felt that on merit, given what he’s achieved since he’s been in our system and because of the ability, Loui was worthy of making our team tomorrow night.”