Departing Leeds Rhinos hooker Brad Dwyer says he’ll always be grateful to have had the chance to represent the club.
Along with team-mate, versatile back Liam Sutcliffe, the 29-year-old is heading to Hull FC, ending a five-season association with the Headingley club.
Signed from Warrington, the Wigan-born player made his 121st Leeds appearance as Rohan Smith’s side scored two late tries to beat Castleford 14-8 at home and seal a play-off eliminator at Catalans Dragons on Friday.
It was a seventh win in eight for Leeds, whose rollercoaster campaign included the departure as coach of Richard Agar six matches in, at which point they had won just once.
There have been eleven victories in 16 games since Smith arrived from Queensland Cup side Norths Devils.
Dwyer, who has scored 35 tries and a field-goal for Leeds, and is having a knee injury picked up against Castleford assessed, says he will miss playing on front of the Headingley crowd as a Rhino.
“I have spoken about it throughout my time here, how grateful I am to play at a place like this, with the atmosphere there is,” he said.
“I feel lucky to have been able to experience it.”
Leeds trailed 8-0 against Castleford with just ten minutes remaining, before Rhyse Martin’s penalty-goal sparked a comeback completed by tries by Kruise Leeming and Aidan Sezer and two Martin conversions.
“We were struggling to get one score, so to take an easy two points made sense to me,” said Smith of the decision to kick the penalty rather than attempt a try.
“The minimum goal everyone sets out at the start of the season is to be in the play-offs, so to be there is a good result.
“There are a lot of parts of our sport that are about being tough and brave and hanging in there and pushing through adversity and fatigue and for most of that game we did that really well.
“We lacked any fluency again. Skills got us a couple of tries but character held us in there.”
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