Leeds Rhinos v St Helens: Revenge is just one motivation for hungry Rhinos

When Leeds played at St Helens in March they were ransacked 46-6 by a rampant team who produced the traditional response to seeing their own boss sacked.

Royce Simmons had been fired a few days earlier and Saints – under the guidance of acting head coach Mike Rush and their legend Keiron Cunningham – reacted with a devastating performance.

Leeds had dyed their hair red in aid of charity but were left red-faced as they fell 18-0 behind inside just 12 minutes, never recovering as McDermott suffered his heaviest loss since taking over in October 2010.

The great rivals meet again this evening at Headingley Carnegie and Leeds, who defeated Saints in last year’s Grand Final, are looking to redress the balance.

However, Bradford Bulls’ 20-20 draw at Salford on Friday has also seen the Rhinos slip to eighth in Super League, something McDermott is keen to remedy.

“This is a big game for a few reasons,” he admitted, with the fixture also being the start of Sky Sports new Super League Monday slot.

“We’re at that stage of the season where we need to start making our way up the ladder and what happened at Saints – while it’s not going to be a huge focus – is something we’ve talked about it.

“We’d like to reverse it as it wasn’t a great day.

“Saints had every reason to be very, very good that night and we had a combination of an off-day and some key people missing.

“We’ve taken that into account but overall we under-performed and that’s something we want to get right.

“There’s certain things we want to put right throughout the year and this is one of those.”

Since then, Saints have lost just once in five Super League fixtures and now sit a point above their West Yorkshire rivals.

However, there is no mounting concern at Headingley; Leeds have two games in hand and know if they prosper in both they will be only four points adrift of leaders Wigan.

It is imperative they kick-on, though, as after Sunday’s Magic Weekend fixture with Bradford they face successive elite tests against Wigan and title-chasing Warrington.

England captain and the influential Jamie Peacock returns tonight after being rested for last week’s Challenge Cup win at Leigh while Carl Ablett and Brett Delaney are restored to the pack too to bolster their bid.

Exciting centre Kallum Watkins also takes his place for the first time since Good Friday after recovering from a knee injury and such is the strength of Leeds’s thriving squad that Ben Jones-Bishop, who hopes to feature for England against the Exiles next month, cannot even make the 19-man party.

Saints, meanwhile, are smarting following their Challenge Cup quarter-final exit against fierce rivals Wigan, incidentally the only team to have defeated them in the league since Rush took over, and McDermott expects a backlash.

“We obviously both come into the game on the back of contrasting results last weekend,” he said.

“I’m sure Saints will come out fired up after their loss to Wigan and the end of their hunt for the Challenge Cup this year.

“We had a big win at Leigh but that was expected of us and we did what we needed to do.

“We have both had a lengthy build-up to this game and it will be interesting to see how a Monday night fixture affects both teams as we are very much going into the unknown.

“But we have rejigged our training schedule this week to try and keep our build-up as normal as possible and we’ve also done one or two things different which, let’s hope, will have some benefit.

“Thankfully we are getting to a situation now when we will have a fully-fit squad to select from.

“We have booked our place in the Challenge Cup semi-final and can now turn our focus solely on Super League after alternate weekends of league and cup since Easter.

“We want to climb the table and we have a good chance to do just that against Saints with them being a point ahead of us. However, importantly this is also a chance for us to gain some momentum with a run of tough games coming up, starting on Monday night.”

Meanwhile, Saturday marked the 40th anniversary of Leeds’s 1972 Championship final win over Saints – the club’s last title before Kevin Sinfield lifted the Super League trophy in 2004 – so members of that side will be guests of honour this evening.

McDermott said: “It’s always pretty poignant seeing the old fellas from yesteryear and it brings home what a great game and club we’re involved with here with all the tradition at Headingley.

“If we can put a show on for those fellas, all the better.”