Leeds Rhinos: McDermott still pondering Burrow Challenge Cup final role

Burrow, who has made the move from scrum-half to hooker over the last 12 months, has missed the Rhinos’ last two Super League games with a calf strain but will definitely return to face Warrington at Wembley.

“Rob should be right,” McDermott said at the Cup final media day in Manchester.

“He’s still got one or two things that he’s got to knock off this week in prep.

“He was a little bit better than 50-50 against Catalans at the weekend and it was an easy decision not to play him, given what we’ve got this week.

“He should feature this week. He will start, I don’t think there’s any secret in that.”

With Burrow’s old half-back partner Danny McGuire ruled out for six weeks with a knee injury, McDermott admits it was a huge relief to have the Great Britain international available.

“We’ll miss Maggsy,” he said. “There’s no doubt about that. He’s a big part of what we do and we all feel for Maggsy that he won’t play.

“Had Rob been missing as well, strategically and tactically that would have been lot more difficult than it is.

“We’ll try and get past missing Maggsy. I think it would have been a bit too hard had we not got Rob.”

Burrow made a big impact from the bench in last year’s 28-18 Challenge Cup final defeat by Wigan and was man of the match in the Rhinos’ Grand Final win over St Helens six weeks later.

After providing back-up for regular hooker Danny Buderus, Burrow was handed the role on a more regular basis this season but the loss of McGuire may mean a return to his old scrum-half role on Saturday.

McDermott’s other option is to stick with 18-year-old utility player Stevie Ward in the halves after he played there in Saturday’s 38-34 defeat by Catalan Dragons.

“We haven’t nailed that down just yet,” McDermott added. “We’re still going through a few things.

“He’s obviously got a great history as a seven. We’ll finalise that in the next couple of days.”

Warrington coach Tony Smith, who knows all about the threat of McGuire from his time at Leeds, believes the Rhinos can overcome the absence of their star half-back.

“He’s a quality player and we want our quality players of the game playing in big quality games like this,” said Smith

“He’s a terrific player who has been in good form this year but I don’t know that any one key player out of any of the top teams makes that big a difference.

“If you had a number of key players out on any one given day, it does affect most teams but most teams are able to soak up the fact that one is missing.

“I’m sure Leeds won’t make a fuss about that and nor will we. They’ll still have a lot of threatening players right across the field.”

With the exception of half-back Gareth O’Brien, who is out with a shoulder injury, Smith can pick from a full-strength squad and he admits some of his fringe players failed to press their claims in last Friday’s shock 62-18 defeat at London Broncos.

“It certainly settled some selection scores,” he said. “For some it strengthened their selection cause and for a few it probably didn’t enhance them.

“It also gave us a chance to put some boys in cotton wool. We came through pretty well injury wise.

“We’re pretty close to finalising the team. There’s only one or two bits that we’ve got to consider and finalise. The majority of the team has come together.”