BRAD ARTHUR says a change to Leeds Rhinos’ preparation has allowed them to maintain their form both home and away.

Leeds won their seventh straight game as 28-6 victors at Catalans Dragons, re-establishing a four-point lead at the top of Super League.

Coach Arthur said: “I think we’ve been building with our away performances, and a change four or five weeks ago to our mentality and our prep. The boys have bought in. 

“I was really happy with our start to the second half where it boiled over a little bit but we didn’t lose our head and we were able to calm ourselves down and get ourselves back to what we wanted to do. 

“We wanted to come here and dominate possession and we did that really well.

“There were some big performances out there – I thought Chris Hankinson was really good.

“I thought Brodie (Croft) was good, I thought Macca (James McDonnell) did a good job on that edge too. Harry (Newman) had a good second half. Danny Levi played 80 minutes through the middle in these conditions. 

“There were some big efforts out there tonight.”

Despite the positives, Arthur was unhappy with the Dragons’ late consolation try, saying: “I was disappointed for the boys. 

“It will give us something to go and look at in the last few minutes – how do we close out better because it certainly wasn’t through effort or want or desire. There was a real want and desire to keep a clean sheet.”

Catalans head coach John Cartwright said: “Intent wise and physicality, it was a massive improvement on last week (a thrashing by Toulouse Olympique). 

“To compete with them (Leeds), we had to do that. Up until 16-0 down, we were still in the game. We were unlucky because we should have scored a try and you have to take your chances against a side like that, and we didn’t.”

Cartwright was pleased with aspects of the Catalans performance, particularly the physicality shown in the second half.

He added: “There are a lot of things that we had to get right to be in the game against Leeds, and we didn’t quite do it, but basically, I just loved the way our boys had each other’s backs in that second half.”