Leeds Rhinos 17, St Helens 4: Magic Weekend press conference with Brad Arthur & Lachie Miller

Peter Smith

Coach Brad Arthur and full-back Lachie Miller give their thoughts on Leeds Rhinos' 17-4 Magic Weekend defeat of St Helens at St James' Park, Newcastle.

Transcript

00:00First half though, so expansive, was the game plan to try and play around Saints?

00:05We wanted to, you know, we sort of talked about get some good early movement on the ball,

00:10move them around a bit and then just either side of half time trying to power through the middle.

00:15We probably, after about 30 minutes, that's where we lost our way.

00:19We probably went away from what we were supposed to do before half time and to start the second half.

00:25That's where we just got a bit frantic at times.

00:27But defensively, the scrimmage was excellent.

00:31And they made a couple of long-range line rakes in the second half and we got back behind the ball

00:35and we had every single member in their defensive line, which is, you know, great for their commitment to their team.

00:42Lachie, just give us your assessment of how victory is there.

00:46Yeah, just as Brad said, it was tough. It felt really tough.

00:49I felt like we definitely made it harder on ourselves, but we just kept turning up.

00:53We focused a lot on our defence and I thought it was really good tonight at times.

00:57And especially when they're making line rakes, getting back for each other.

01:00And, you know, we put ourselves in those positions to win and I felt like tonight we followed through with it,

01:05which was really pleasing.

01:07Did you enjoy the expansive aspect of that first half?

01:11Yeah, no, I enjoyed it, but as Brad touched on, we didn't really know when to rein it in.

01:16Which is a bit disappointing, but we'll learn from that.

01:18And, yeah, maybe a couple more expensive games.

01:21What about that booming pass, the right-to-left pass that set up the try deep inside your own heart?

01:27What's going to be in mind at that point?

01:29I just gave Ash, and if he had Ash the ball to space, he'd be still not giving the ball,

01:33so I just tried my best to get it there.

01:36Brad, was it difficult to watch at times in the second half?

01:38No, I've got a real level of trust around them that they'll keep turning up, so that's great.

01:46And, you know, if we're going to play that way, we need to be able to defend our errors, and we did that.

01:52We just got to learn, you know, like we get a bit overexcited and a bit over, you know, emotional,

01:58and we let that carry on.

01:59So, you know, things were working for us, but then we just needed to go back to what the plan was before half-time,

02:05you know, once we've moved them around and tied them, to come back through the middle.

02:09So we'll learn from that, but luckily we didn't have to learn it with a loss.

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