LEEDS RHINOS will be hoping for reinforcements for their crunch Challenge Cup trip to St Helens on Friday after a bruising defeat to Catalans Dragons.
Coach Brad Arthur described the mood among his players as “sombre” after their 11-0 loss in Perpignan, during which scrum-half Matt Frawley failed a head-injury assessment, ruling him out of the fifth-round clash at the Totally Wicked Stadium.
Arthur reported no further injury concerns from Saturday’s game at Stade Gilbert Brutus but “a lot of wounded pride” in the numbers of mistakes his side made during the match.
He is hoping winger Ryan Hall will be back for the Saints clash with a growing number of first-team players unavailable through injury or suspension.
The Leeds coach said after the Catalans game, “Matt Frawley didn’t come back on, he seems okay in the sheds right now but he won’t be there next week for us. I think Ryan Hall will be alright for us and there weren’t any other injury worries from tonight, so we’ll be okay going into our next game.
“We’ve got to keep working, we can’t give up on an effort like that, the want and the desire is all there but we need to execute our roles better from one to 17.
“The good thing about Rugby League is you’ve always got next week, so you’re only as good as your last game, which is this one and we weren’t real good. But we’ll pick the spirits up and tidy up concentration around our skill and get stuck into it next week against St Helens.”
Arthur pointed towards mistakes and indiscipline for the second defeat of the season for the Rhinos, adding, “Frustrating is a good word to describe how we are feeling. I’m disappointed for the amount of effort and the attitude they put into that game.
“It’s even more frustrating when you look at the mistakes in simple execution of our skill. We had a poor completion rate and didn’t build any pressure and create any flowing footy.
“You can’t turn it on one week and not the next, we need to be more consistent in what we’re doing. It’s a simple game and we didn’t do the simple things good enough tonight.
“There’s not much more I can say, I wanted us to defend our tryline for long periods and we did that, but then we go and put ourselves under pressure again.
“We created some opportunities but simple skill let us down.”
