Debutant Ablett hoping Leeds can benefit from home victory

Ablett was one of 10 players on international duty on Saturday night now preparing to face Wakefield Trinity in a crucial league contest this evening.

Ablett made his England debut in the 18-10 win over the Exiles alongside Rhinos colleagues Kevin Sinfield, Jamie Peacock Jamie Jones-Buchanan, Ryan Hall and Rob Burrow.

Zak Hardaker, Ben Jones-Bishop, Chris Clarkson and Shaun Lunt each featured in England Knights’ emphatic 62-4 curtain-raiser victory over Ireland but all were back at Headingley yesterday preparing for the vital West Yorkshire derby.

Inconsistent Leeds have won just once in five outings to leave themselves unexpectedly outside the play-off places and in danger of missing the end-of-season finale for the first time in their history.

This evening’s game has been rearranged after it was originally postponed due to Rhinos’ involvement in the World Club Challenge back in February – a rousing success over NRL champions Manly which now seems like an eternity ago, given their current malaise.

However, centre Ablett believes the positive experience with England can act as a catalyst for their club performances.

Speaking exclusively to the Yorkshire Post, he said: “As players it’s been quite good to come away for the week (with England), forget about things, build a little more confidence and just get back into that winning feeling and motion.

“It’s important that we get back to winning ways and hopefully we can take what happened with England into our Leeds form too.

“Wakefield is the start of a big run for us. We’ve a few games where we need to start building some form.

“A lot has been said but we need to get out there and start doing something on the field. We can’t go waiting for stuff to happen; we have got to make it happen.”

Indeed, Leeds need to act fast with just 11 games to go, and it will not be easy given Wakefield’s current form.

Ablett conceded: “They always seem to raise their game agaist us, being a local derby, and we’re expecting a tough match.

“They’ll have had a long time to prepare for it and have won three games on the trot. Wakefield have some dangerous players and Richard Agar has got them playing well.”

The heavy international involvement means it is a taxing prospect for the Leeds squad and a real examination of their resolve. All 10 have been included in Brian McDermott’s 19-man party while they are without ex-Kiwi full-back Brent Webb for up to two months after it was confirmed he suffered knee ligament damage in the 37-18 loss at Warrington.

Winger Jones-Bishop, who scored a hat-trick against Ireland, will switch to full-back to replace him with Lee Smith coming in on the flank.

When asked what he will be doing in the interim, Ablett pictured below, said: “Eat a lot, sleep a lot, and do as much as I can to try to recover as much as I can. I think we’ll be alright. Over Easter we seem to get through it and it’s a tough time at the moment so I think everyone will back up come Monday night.”

The 26-year-old maintains faltering Leeds can recover their season. They can cut the gap to fourth-placed St Helens to just two points if they prosper this evening and he added: “You see people picking points off each other now – Salford have picked up a few wins, Hull KR have started to get some victories and Huddersfield have lost a few.

“It’s been one of those seasons where anything can happen so if we can get two, three or four victories we can start building momentum and soon start climbing back up the table.”

On his England debut, in which he showed some neat touches down the right side, Ablett said: “It was quite tough out there.

“The (rainy) conditions made it the kind of game it was – not the most fluent – but one that I will remember.

“It was really wet and the ball was greasy so any shot around the ball and it just seemed to pop out. We had to manage the game well and I thought we did in the first half. But in the second we made a few too many errors and didn’t put them under enough pressure but we’ve another game to come against the Exiles and we’ll learn from that.”

Agar, meanwhile, is expecting to keep the same 17 that defeated Hull FC last week.

“We came through with a clean bill of health from last week so I wouldn’t envisage too many changes to the team we put out tonight,” he said.

“We have had a normal week’s training and the boys have been sharp. As you would expect they have a fair amount of buoyancy after the performance and the win.”