'They don't need me': Brad Arthur makes Leeds Rhinos claim after Salford Red Devils win
Brad Arthur believes his Leeds Rhinos players are ready to take full ownership of their team, declaring: "They don't need me."
The Australian's long-term future at Headingley has been shrouded in doubt ever since his arrival last summer.
Arthur originally signed a short-term deal with the Rhinos before quickly agreeing to stay on for this season.
However, he remains unable to commit beyond 2025 due to family reasons, with the 50-year-old in England while his son Matt makes his debut for Newcastle Knights this weekend.
After putting the building blocks in place, Arthur is confident Leeds are heading in the right direction – whether he is there to see it through or not.
"Everyone knows I'm fully committed for this year and want to leave the place in a better place than when I got here," he said after Thursday's 28-0 win at Salford Red Devils.
"They don't need me anyway. They can run it themselves now. They know the standards and expectations.
"Bleasy (Ian Blease, sporting director) and (chairman) Paul Caddick have put together a good squad and hopefully we can get some good rewards out of it this year but this team has been together for five months. It'll be nice when they've been together for 12 months, two years.
"Then the club have got the right players and staff and the objective is to keep them together and give them the opportunity to build.
"Hopefully if I'm here we continue to do the same thing and if I'm not, the players know the standards and expectations they need to meet.
"They need to drive it themselves. They need to own it – and they are at the moment. I want to continue to push that."
Leeds kept a heavily weakened Red Devils outfit scoreless but failed to fire in attack to continue a theme of their campaign.
James McDonnell stole the show with four tries, while Jake Connor provided three assists to maintain his promising early-season form.
However, the Rhinos were unable to fully capitalise on Salford's woes in a largely frustrating attacking display.
"I should be pleased about this but I'm also disappointed," said Arthur. "They're trying so hard and when you're trying very hard to chase the scoreboard, you lose your way a little bit.
"The first half we tried to chase the scoreboard instead of letting it evolve and earning the points. I felt like we'd done all the hard work and got ourselves in good field position but we just couldn't ice it.
"It's not what we've been focusing on a lot; we've focused on our intensity and our defence while playing field position. All year our defence has been good. We've been pulled apart a couple of times here and there but we're getting better with our combinations on the edges.
"We probably didn't look as crisp as I'd like us to look. Certainly in the second half once we relaxed a little bit, we played a bit more direct. We weren't fantastic with the ball but there was a lot to like."