Salford Red Devils v Leeds Rhinos: Brad Arthur braced for challenge of rejuvenated Red Devils

Saturday’s game, in Betfred Super League round two, is Salford’s first since a takeover, ending months of uncertainty over the club’s future, was approved by the RFL on Thursday. The Red Devils fielded a second-string side at St Helens last week and were thrashed 82-0, but with a reduced £1.2m salary cap now lifted, their coach Paul Rowley has named his strongest-available squad to face Rhinos.

Salford are hoping to create a party atmosphere, with local rock legends Happy Mondays playing before the game and Leeds will be stepping into a cauldron, but Arthur insisted his men aren’t going to be taken by surprise.

Rhinos are on the back of a 14-12 home loss to Wakefield Trinity in round one and their focus has been on fixing what went wrong in that game, while also getting ready for the best Salford throw at them.

“We prepared as if they were going to be at full-strength,” the Leeds boss insisted.

“Overall, what we’ve prepared for is the team they’ve put out, but preparation is not hard, because the majority of the time it is about yourself and the fixes we had to make from last week.

“I think that sort of stuff [what Salford have been through] in sport galvanises teams and groups; we haven’t discussed it too much, but the way we have prepared is around it being their first home game, their best team and they will be galvanised.”

Arthur accepted Leeds will need to be better than last week, when Wakefield scored all their points in a 10-minute spell in the second quarter, but feels there was plenty to build on.

Leeds dominated after the break, but couldn’t pull the game from the fire and Arthur stressed lessons have been learned, particularly around being more composed and patient.

“We need to p[ay better, but there were lots of good things in our game,” he stated.

“The things we got wrong really hurt us and when it’s a close competition and both teams are well-prepared and going at it, it doesn’t come down to much.

“We got held up over the line three times and if we just tidied up some detail around that and what we should be doing, it could have been a different result.

“We need to grow from it and learn. The pleasing thing for me was we were still fighting hard.

“We were a bit frustrated and lost a bit of composure, but we kept going at it right to the 80th minute.”

Arthur felt there was “nothing wrong with our effort or physicality last week” and was pleased with his side’s discipline - conceding only four penalties - and just 12 missed tackles.

But he admitted: “We lacked a bit of composure and I think scoreboard pressure and the time on the clock maybe played a bit into us mentally and we were chasing the game too much when we didn’t need to.

“We’ve gone through it during the week and looked at a couple of their tries and what we did wrong defensively.

“We just weren’t on the same page, but we had defended well up until that point. Once we addressed it at half-time, the boys fixed it.

“That was the pleasing thing, we were able to fix it and we gained confidence out of that, but there were a couple of wrong decisions and guys trying too hard to do it on their own.

“They scored a kick try off an error and we need to be better than that. We can’t afford to give up easy tries like that.

“With the ball, I felt like everyone tried too hard to make the big plays, instead of being patient and trying to grind it out.”

Leeds have a new-look side this year and Arthur believes experiences like last week are “part of our growth as a team”.

He said: We wanted to play for 80 minutes and in the 80th minute we were trying hard, the effort was still there, we were still physical.

“We won the second half and were able to fix what we got wrong in that 10-minute window in the first half.

“That was the main thing I wanted to do, make sure we were an 80-minute team. We have got to continue to be that, but when we are under pressure or things aren’t coming easy, we have to stay in the contest and keep our composure and patience and not worry too much about the scoreboard.

“We need to let our game unfold and see what happens when we get to the end of the clock.”