Why Aidan Sezer, Alex Mellor and Bodene Thompson didn’t play for Leeds Rhinos last night

Ahead of last night’s clash between Leeds and St Helens, both sides named somewhat surprising teams.

After naming strong squads St Helens were forced to do without Alex Walmsley with the game coming too soon for the big prop forward whilst Leeds left out a number of key players with Muizz Mustapha making his first Leeds appearance since 2020 as consequence.

Leeds were without Aidan Sezer, Alex Mellor and Bodene Thompson but very little reason was given as for why until after the game in Jamie Jones-Buchanan’s press conference.

Prior to the game we knew that Sezer’s absence was an injury concern and Leeds’ interim boss Buchanan revealed that it was a groin injury which had been plaguing the scrum-half for some time. In his absence, Liam Sutcliffe started in the halves with Jack Broadbent coming in at centre.

As for Mellor and Thompson, their unavailability was a mystery to begin with especially after both missed the defeat to Castleford last week.

On Mellor, Jamie Jones-Buchanan simply said: “Mellor’s poorly, he’s not been well” explaining the former Huddersfield man’s absence.

As for Bodene, the Leeds legend stated: “Bodene’s had a pretty serious issue at home and I’ve just said ‘mate family comes first always, get that right’ I didn’t want him anywhere near because he has things he had to deal with.

“Bodene’s trained really well, working hard, he understands where he needs to improve certainly in the short term. You have these example setters, he does all the right things and it’s good to have him in the mix because he’s a good role model. I really wanted him to play tonight, I was looking forward to seeing him play but unfortunately he had a really important issue that he had to deal with at home.”

There were some new injury concerns during the game but Buchanan praised the likes of Jack Walker and Mikolaj Oledki for “playing hurt.” Meanwhile, James Bentley passed his HIA but was not risked further owing to a neck complaint.