Rhyse Martin opens up on his ’emotional’ final moments with Leeds Rhinos as he backs Brad Arthur

Brad Arthur is the man to get Leeds Rhinos moving in the right direction in the Super League next season. That’s the belief of outgoing forward Rhyse Martin, who played his last game for the club on Friday night ahead of his move across Yorkshire to Hull KR.

The Rhinos responded to the arrival of Arthur in July and in his nine games in charge they won five. Such form ensured Leeds entered the final two weeks of the regular campaign with a chance of claiming a spot in the top six and keeping their season alive.

However, defeats on the road to Wigan Warriors and KR saw the door slammed in their faces, with the club eventually finishing eighth and two points off the pace. There’s work to be done at Headingley then with recruitment seen as key as they push to add at least one or two new faces.

Arthur knows he has plenty of work to do on the training field, though, with the squad getting to work this week on fixing up some of those issues. Martin won’t be training with Leeds this week, with the Papua New Guinea international returning to Australia for a period before his move to east Hull, but he has plenty of faith in Arthur to do what is needed.

“I’d heard a lot of positive things from players that had worked with him before,” Martin said when speaking to Serious About RL about Arthur’s arrival at Leeds Rhinos. “I didn’t know what to expect but I think he was someone who the team really needed.

“Not just with the team but I think the club in general, he’s going to make sure things are done properly for the betterment of the club and the team, he’s going to be a massive part for the club in the next 12 months.”

Martin was one of those to react positively to Arthur’s methods with five tries and two assists coming over the final nine games of the season.

“It’s more of the team overall,” he added. “As a team everyone was probably more accountable to their roles in the team and they knew what they needed to do. The shape was more clear I think.

“Brad’s been good and everyone has responded well to him and we were winning games. I was just doing my job as best as I could and Brodie and Frawls gave me a lot of good balls into space and I was able to get over the line.”

Of course, one of those tries came on Friday night as he said farewell to Leeds Rhinos by getting over the line in the loss to KR at Craven Park, a ground Martin will call home in the not too distant future.

Ultimately, Martin didn’t go out on the high he had hoped, but the moment was still one that he will look back on fondly when he reflects on his time at Headingley.

“It was quite emotional after the game,” he said, reflecting on his final run out for the club. “It was a bit of a weird feeling but definitely an end of an era, it was something I can look back on now and something I really enjoyed. A big part of my career that will be good to reflect on once I’m done.

“It was good to finish off with a decent enough performance. We’re disappointed we couldn’t finish off with a win but yeah, from the outside looking in it probably couldn’t finish off a better way for me really.”