Former Leeds star Rhyse Martin has warned his Hull KR team-mates to beware the revitalised Rhinos as the two clubs prepare for a high-profile Betfred Super League clash at Headingley on Thursday.
Martin spent five years at Leeds, including the first few months of current head coach Brad Arthur’s reign at the end of last season, and saw at first hand the start of his former side’s dramatic improvement.
Leeds’ crushing win at Castleford last Sunday moved them within two points of second-placed Wigan and they are shaping into one of the biggest post-season threats to Rovers’ hopes of going on to clinch their first Grand Final.
Martin said: “He (Arthur) brought the accountability the team was asking for. They wanted to have that challenge put upon them by the coach and the hard-working mentality everybody is seeing from them.
“They’re willing to grind teams down and have the skills on top of that. With Brad, it’s the hard-nosed work ethic and the skill-based rugby on top of that.”
Rovers all but wrapped up this season’s League Leaders’ Shield with an intense 10-6 win at Wigan last weekend, but victory came at a price as prop Jared Waerea-Hargreaves picked up a two-match ban for striking Tyler Dupree.
And Martin, set to return to Headingley for the first time since his move, is under no illusions about the size of the task the Robins face if they are to maintain their momentum and finally confirm their second piece of silverware this season.
“The Leeds game is going to be just as hard, if not harder,” added Martin. “Playing them at Headingley, you know you’re in for a tough game. We’ll have to have our best game against them.”
Arthur has galvanised the Rhinos since replacing Rohan Smith midway through last season, and they head into the run-in effectively assured of a first play-off place in two years.
But results last weekend have also raised realistic hopes of a top-two finish which would send them straight into the play-off semi-finals and bring post-season rugby league back to Headingley for the first time since 2017.
“I didn’t realise that (but) it certainly gives us extra motivation,” said Arthur, who will resist the temptation to blood new boy Joe Shorrocks, who arrived on loan from ailing Salford this week.
“I think the club and our fans, supporters and sponsors deserve a home final. That’s a long time, but there’s a lot of hard work between now and then.
“We’ve been very good at just focusing on us and how to get better. If we continue to do that we might, just maybe, give ourselves a chance to get to that end result. But there’s a fair bit of work to be done yet, and a lot of twists and turns left in this competition.”
