Leeds Rhinos boss Rohan Smith on Gary Hetherington conversations and persisting with short drop-out tactic

Leeds reached the Super League Grand Final in 2022 following Smith's mid-season arrival but struggled for consistency on their way to an eighth-place finish last year and have failed to convince in the early stages of this campaign.

The Rhinos suffered a fourth successive home defeat last week after succumbing to a Huddersfield Giants fightback, leading to boos from the Headingley faithful.

Smith has stressed that he and chief executive Gary Hetherington remain on the same page as Leeds aim to close the two-point gap to the play-off positions.

"Gary and I talk multiple times a day," said Smith, who has lost David Fusitu'a for up to 10 weeks with a knee injury and will also be without Harry Newman at Hull FC on Sunday.

"I've heard nothing alternate to me coming in and doing my job for the club.

"We want to do better but we have played some good footy. We need to get some more results, that's clear, but it's not the worst position in the world to be in."

Leeds struggled to contain Huddersfield after losing Fusitu'a and Newman at the same time but were level with six minutes to go when Lachie Miller failed to make the required 10 metres with a risky short drop-out, allowing Jake Connor to knock over a penalty that ended the Rhinos' chances.

Smith will continue to encourage his team to throw caution to the wind – as long as it is in their favour.

"When they should be used is very circumstantial," he said.

"Clearly on the weekend, we didn't think that was the time for it. Ironically, some rugby league experts who watched the game thought it may have been a good time to do it because we were struggling to have any real possession.

"Those short drop-outs are really a club-by-club or a case-by-case situation. In that situation, I'm not encouraging or endorsing the short drop-out. It's something we'll certainly learn from.

"You see in the NRL with the rule change they've made where you can't kick a penalty goal on a failed drop-out, I think it's 80 per cent of the time, maybe a bit more, that people are going short so there's obviously some better reward than a 50/50 situation if so many teams are doing it.

"But in that circumstance, we would have encouraged going long."

He added: "We've talked internally about generally using it when we've got great catchers in position, good conditions – as in the wind might be blowing slightly in your face – and sometimes the energy battle of the game.

"Generally, we've only gone for short drop-outs and kick-offs when the game has been ahead of us and we've needed the ball to be able to score.

"We have chosen to do it a couple of times when we shouldn't have but we'll learn from that."