Brad Arthur was left incredibly proud of his Leeds Rhinos side’s effort in victory over Castleford Tigers, despite the squad looking tired after their Las Vegas Trip.
After beating Hull KR emphatically on the Saturday, the Rhinos left the Sin City on Sunday, before landing back in the UK on Monday, where normal service was resumed.
Arthur’s men didn’t look to show signs of fatigue, as they saw off the Tigers by winning 22-4, but the boss clearly saw it a different way, but didn’t want to make their venture to the US an excuse.
The Leeds coach spoke to the press after the game, and praised the team’s attacking delivery, in which Maika Sivo ran in three tries to take his season total to nine in three matches.
“It probably wasn’t our best performance,” Arthur said. “But in terms of execution, I’m pretty proud of the effort and the fight and the grit that we played with.
“…I thought we looked tired a lot of the time, but we just kept hanging in there and fighting hard, and teams are going to turn up like that against us.
“We haven’t used that as an excuse and we won’t, but the travel, obviously, and all the the hoo-ha that went on last week with Vegas, it took it’s toll a little bit, and you could see that.
“But, the good thing about the boys, they didn’t mention that. They weren’t looking for excuses and we just had to grind out a win to keep it to four [points conceded] with ten minutes to go when we got a little bit loose with some of our finishes. We just kept turning up on our try line.”
Leeds Rhinos boss makes bold claim about star man
Despite Sivo racking up yet another hat-trick, Arthur wasn’t fully convinced by the winger’s efforts.
The Fijian international is comfortably the league’s top try scorer, but the boss, who worked with Sivo at Parramatta Eels, believes there is still plenty more to come from him – which is a truly frightening prospect.
“We brought him here to score tries and he’s certainly going to do that,” said the boss. “He doesn’t bomb many, he’s a good finisher. But again, I thought he carried tight at times and made it easy for them to tackle him.
“I don’t want him to do that, but he’s not fit. He’s just not fit. He will be. But it’s just going to take a bit of time.
Revealing what he wants to see Sivo do more of, he said: “Not scoring more tries or anything like that, but just getting a bit more out of his carries and more involvement.
“At the moment, I’ve told him, involvement’s not critical for him at the minute. It’s quality of what he does. And so we just keep focussing on the quality of what he does.
“As he gets fitter and fitter, he’ll be able to do it more regularly.”
