Rohan Smith believes this way of playing is “a blemish on the game”

In a bit of a surprise, as Leeds Rhinos played against Leigh Leopards yesterday, it seemed Blake Austin and Aidan Sezer swapped sides of the field.

Last year, the right footed Austin played on the right whist the left footed Sezer played on the left.

However, according to boss Rohan Smith, he doesn’t want a rigid attack next year and believes that rigidity is “a blemish on the game”:

“To sum it up, I don’t want them playing on one side at all. Austin played both sides of the field. Aidan was more right sided but he was actually the first receiver with Austin swinging around there.

“I don’t want them to just play one side or the other. For whatever reason when they have played together at Canberra and here a bit they have gravitated towards left and right. It’s not something I have ever told them to do and I think it is a blemish on the game.

“I don’t know why left footed kickers go and stand left when it can sometimes be more beneficial to have them on the right.

“I don’t want us to be rigid and structured.”

Overall on the performance he said: “Good conditioning, good hit out, good tough game

“Heavy field in the middle so it was good conditioning, we had a decent brand of what we’re trying to create without executing too well. The process stuff was pretty steady today.

“Both halves of the game were pretty hard fought, it’s almost impossible to tell in friendlies when people are coming and going to see what the strength of the opposition is but Gannon and Sinny did well. I was pretty positive with how we played overall.

“I didn’t check the numbers but I would say we didn’t have much field position today but that doesn’t phase us too much. We looked comfortable.

“We had a couple of moments, an interesting pay the ball where the vocab on the referees mic could be interesting.

“But in the end it was a good hard game of football today and that’s what we were concerned about.”