Brad Arthur is fearing that Leeds Rhinos will be without star winger Maika Sivo for a number of weeks after the Fijian flyer suffered what appeared to be a broken arm against Bradford Bulls.
Despite a slow start, Leeds were able to come through relatively comfortably as they won 42-12 to move back two points clear atop the Super League table.
Jake Connor ran the show with his booming 20/40 kick on the 50th-minute mark to stop any momentum that the Bulls were mounting, with the Rhinos scoring two tries in two minutes immediately after that.
He was a deserved Man of the Match and his performance was noted by Brad Arthur, who spoke post-match to Sky Sports.
The big topic was of course Maika Sivo, who Arthur confirmed is suspected to have a broken forearm with the fear being that the Fijian will be out for six weeks.
“We’re going to do scans but he’ll probably have a broken forearm, which is probably six weeks,” Arthur revealed, with that set to be a big blow given there are just seven games of the season left.
Also injured was Ben Littlewood, who picked up a hamstring injury, with Arthur confirming: “He’ll need a scan, just what level of severity it is, so they’ll go for this. We get Chris Hankinson back next week.”
Arthur assesses ‘gutsy’ win over Bradford Bulls
Both of those injuries came in the first half and prompted a big reshuffle but Leeds overcame it and that fed into Arthur’s assessment of the game as he praised his side for coming through the other side with a comfortable win.
On the performance, he said: “Plenty of guts and courage and resilience. I thought we were nice and tough, I thought we were physical.
“It just got a little loose at times, we can probably hold back a pass and wait for the next play. We were just a bit inpatient at times but there’s a fair level of belief in how we want to play in the attack. Sometimes we can push the boundaries a little bit far.
“I’ve got to be careful how much I rein them in as I don’t want to take that creativity from them but there were a few push passes that we probably could have afforded to wait until the next play.”
The Rhinos completed at just 68% and made a whopping 16 errors, two stats that Arthur will not have liked and the Leeds coach said as such: “65% or whatever you said it is for the completion rate is nowhere near good enough. We need to be able to play like that and still be in the high 80s with our completion rate.”
Leeds Rhinos praised for adapting to injury issues
The injuries today are just the latest knocks for Leeds, joining Ryan Hall, Keenan Palasia, Ash Handley and Danny Levi after what had been a relatively injury-free season.
On injuries, Arthur said: “It’s part of the game, we’ve done such a good job up to this point, but at least we banked the points when we needed to and now we’re a bit disjointed with that team there today.
“Macca (James McDonnell) had to go out in the centres and we had move wingers around, so we’ve just got to keep them nice and simple and if we can improve that completion rate, just while we’ve got a few blokes out.
“We’ve worked hard to get to this position, we’ve got to work hard now to stay in, it’s as simple as that.”
He also had plenty of praise for Jake Connor, particularly the three minutes in the second-half where he turned the game on his head.
On the 20/40, from which Leeds scored, Arthur said: “It was a big moment. He’s had a habit of doing those for us and coming up with big moments, but I thought Jake was better today in his effort and defensively.
“He had an off day last week in defence, that’s what I challenged him on, he responded really well and stepped up when we needed him to. I think our try after the 40-20, he put a nice bomb to the middle of the field, which gave us an opportunity to contest as well.
The Rhinos claim an impressive victory in Rivals Returns 🦏#SuperLeague pic.twitter.com/L0MQOtZy75
— Betfred Super League (@SuperLeague) July 26, 2026
