BRAD ARTHUR was full of praise for Cameron Smith after seeing his Leeds Rhinos side prove they’re “tough enough” with a 24-22 comeback win at Wakefield Trinity.
In a thrilling battle of the top two, Wakefield led 22-6 early in the second half.
But tries by James McDonnell, Smith and, three minutes from time, Chris Hankinson, all crucially converted by Jake Connor, saw Leeds seal their play-off place and take a big step towards the League Leaders’ Shield.
“We showed plenty of character in the second half, and even in the first half,” said coach Arthur.
“It wasn’t our best performance by any means, but it was exactly the game we needed, an 80-minute game.
“We’ve had things our own way for a long time but we really had to fight, we were put under pressure.
“We got a couple of things wrong and we had to get our composure back and get ourselves back on track.
“We did a lot of good things and some bad things. We got kicked down, punched to the ground, and we had to get back up and go again, and we did that on several occasions.
“I told the boys at half-time we’d need to go right to the 80th minute and they did it.
“There might have been some questions at half-time, ‘are our blokes tough enough?’ We showed that we were.
“We looked good early, then got run off our feet a little bit. But they haven’t had that intensity in a game for a long time, so it’s done us some favours – and we managed to get the two points, which is even better.
“Right from start, both teams were up for it and it was physical and fast. Both teams were at it the whole game, it was end to end.
“We got fortunate at the end. We had a plan to chase the last tackle and ended up scoring off the kick.”
Arthur hailed the “very, very good” Smith off the bench, in particular the try-saving tackle on Cameron Scott shortly after scoring his own try.
“That was unbelievable, the most important play of the game. It was a massive moment,” he said.
“He came on and changed the contest with our attack, but he also did a tremendous job there to make that tackle in the corner.”