Hull KR 26, Leeds Rhinos 16: coach Brad Arthur's press conference

Coach Brad Arthur reflects on the defeat at Hull KR which ended Leeds Rhinos' season.

Transcript

00:00I heard disappointing the second half, probably the start of the second half, we beat ourselves

00:11like the effort was there. As I said, the boys are 10 weeks now, out of the 10 games,

00:199 of them they've really had a crack and tried to do the right things. The games that we've

00:26made tough for ourselves, we've got a habit of beating ourselves. Against those good teams,

00:31it's turned over too much possession early in the second half. The last 10 or 15 minutes

00:37in the second half, at the end of the game, is probably what we needed to do in the first

00:4010 minutes. Just graft away, grind away, get some field position, then you find your way

00:45over the trial line. They found their way over the trial line just through a glut of

00:49possession at the trial line. We've got to learn from it. I'm extremely grateful to the

00:55club and the opportunity I've been given to come over here for 10 weeks. The players

00:59have been terrific in terms of the buy-in, trying to improve, get better. They want to

01:04win for the club. We've got a long pre-season ahead of us and we've got some work to do,

01:09but I'm happy with their attitude.

01:12The errors tonight were punished, weren't they? How tough were they to take?

01:15Yeah, they were tough. They had a red zone and some errors from the back three, but how

01:21can I be critical? They're kids and they're learning their trade. Their effort was there

01:26and they've done a really good job. That's part of the experience that they're going

01:31to get in it.

01:32What do you say to Alfie in particular?

01:35Nothing today. It'll be part of his review moving forward for the pre-season. The kid's

01:41everywhere, his effort was everywhere. He wants to win. He's done more good things than

01:47bad things, but just some big moments at times in the game just come back to bite you. I'm

01:56sad for him because he's done a lot of good things, more good things than he got wrong.

02:02What about other positives tonight?

02:05Look, there was plenty of fighting. The effort was there and it was a good start. We didn't

02:13have much possession in the first half. We had the trolling and the two opportunities

02:16we got. We scored and we turned into points. There's good signs moving forward for us,

02:25but the fact is we're not playing finals and that's not good enough. We have to be playing

02:32finals.

02:33You said you wouldn't reflect on the season till after tonight, so how do you reflect

02:37on the last 10 games?

02:39I need to wait until early in the week and talk to the players and the staff. I just

02:46briefly said to the players I was extremely grateful for the opportunity they gave me,

02:50the buy-in. A stranger coming into the place doesn't know anything about the place or the

02:56players and they were really open and open-minded about it. Gave me the effort, gave the club

03:04and their teammates the effort and the physicality. Like I said, we've just got to learn how you

03:11control a game. That doesn't just come down to the hubs. How you control a game, how you

03:16build a game. We've shown at times when we've built a game and we've played really well,

03:21but we just lack that control to be able to do it all the time.