LEIGH LEOPARDS joint coach Nigel Johnson hopes Saturday’s season opener against Leeds will show the results of what he and Paul Arnison have brought since their arrival at the start of the year.
The duo stepped into the position left vacant by Kieron Purtill’s departure and will take charge of their first competitive game when the Rhinos travel to Leigh Miners Rangers’ Manchester Road ground for a Challenge Cup group game.
“It was a slow start to pre-season with Paul and I only coming in in January, so we had a lot to do,” said Johnson.
“We didn’t want to change too much because Kieron had done such a good job, plus you don’t want to come in a wield a sword, because any player, whether they’re male or female, don’t usually respond to it when you change things too drastically.
“So we have just tweaked a few things, and worked on a few we thought we could do better, and the players have really settled well and have got used to it.
“It will be nice to see a response from what we’ve worked on when we play Leeds, but we know it will really difficult – it always is against the top four. We just have to focus on what we’ve been working on over the last few months and just play to our best ability.
“It will be a challenge because Leeds have got a few new players, so they are a bit of an unknown quantity. We’ve just got to stick to our gameplan and see what we can do.”
Leigh go into the meeting on the back of a 46-0 defeat to Huddersfield in a pre-season clash, while it will be Leeds’ first match of the year.