BRAD ARTHUR said Leeds were “miles away” from where they should be despite enjoying a routine victory over Castleford.
“I wasn’t pleased. I was really happy with the first 60 minutes, but we need to be an 80-minute team and respect ourselves and the opposition more,” said coach Arthur after seeing his team concede four second-half tries when the game was won.
“That last 20, we didn’t manage it well enough. We tried to play too cute and pretty rather than tough. We did alright to get to 38 points but I don’t know why we got bored of that.
“The positive is we didn’t get any injuries and we can learn from it, it’s a long season and it didn’t cost us two points.
“That was miles away from where I want the team to be but it’s important to chalk up wins and we did that.
He added of his makeshift spine: “We’ve trained all week with Ganno (Morgan Gannon) and Sinny (Jack Sinfield) in the halves and they’ve done a good job in general.
“Jake (Connor) does a lot of good things, he’s got a lot of class but there’s still work in progress.”
Castleford coach Danny McGuire noted: “I was the proud of the way they kept battling and scrapping to the end, although it was a little bit too late.
“We are lacking consistency in our actions. We worked hard in the first 15 minutes to absorb a lot of early pressure and there were some positive signs that they were committed but some real lack of discipline, errors and poor skill cost us and Leeds took advantage, the tries were a bit soft.
“It was never going to be a straight road for us this year and it’s a challenge. There are some good things mixed in with the ordinary and we lack a bit of toughness to push through and can’t quite handle it.
“We’ve got to keep finding positives, but Leeds probably clocked off a little bit.
“It’s always (about) today, I get that, and I’m impatient too but we’re not quite there, but we have periods when we aren’t good enough and that hurts you.”