WATCH: Late Covid scare for Leeds Rhinos but they are ready for "vital" Castleford Tigers game

They return to Super League action in the West Yorkshire derby at Emerald Headingley, fresh from reaching the Coral Challenge Cup final after beating Wigan Warriors on Saturday.

But before Wembley - on Saturday week - Leeds also have a league game against Warrington Wolves next Tuesday to contend with as they look to mount a bid for both trophies.

Agar - who had to delay training this morning due to a Covid scare - said: "The mood’s been great.

"We put in a terrific performance and we’re in a showcase final.

“Knocking a top team off like Wigan in the manner we did I think will fill us with confidence moving forward and let us know what we can do if we get into more of those games.

“We’ve got another game to negotiate first against Cas and we see it as vitally important in terms of our top-four hopes.

“Playing (and losing) against Catalans last week before the semi, we obviously had an inexperienced team.

“We got a lot out of if it but we left a lot of players out and we will probably have to do the same next week against (Warrington) another of our top-four rivals.

“There’ll be the post-Cup final games to think about, too, so we know how important this fixture with Castleford is.”

Leeds, who are joint-fourth with Catalans and have won five of their last six games, have reported a clean bill of health regards Covid despite a minor issue this morning.

Agar explained: "We had a couple of inconclusive Covid tests that weren't given to us until literally 9.30 so we had to tell players to stay away from training.

"Anyway, they have come back clear but we had to put training back an hour as the boys weren't allowed in the building.

"We had the inconclusive Covid tests yesterday so we had to track and trace and that put another three or four of the squad out.

"But it's been redone now and it has been cleared."

Wigan coach Adrian Lam revealed this morning that a third player from his squad had tested positive for Covid after two earlier results yesterday.

However, the player in question did not face Leeds on Saturday so no Rhinos players have to be stood down for track and trace reasons.

Leeds have left Alex Mellor out of their squad for tomorrow but Agar said the second-row is not in doubt for Wembley.

"He's just got some sore ribs so rather than just get him jabbed up this week, we've got Bodene Thompson - a good player - to come in and give him a rest," he said, with on-loan Toronto Wolfpack forward Thompson Cup-tied and unavailable for the final.

"Rather than him still feeling it going into next week he'll be good to go to train in the build-up to the final."

Castleford have lost seven of their eight games since rugby league resumed after lockdown in August.

Agar admitted he had "sympathy" for Daryl Powell's side and said: "It's been a really difficult period for them, especially around the Cup quarter-final against Hull in terms of volume of games and the way they got battered about with some key personnel.

"They've had to move blokes about pretty much every week but what I have seen is a still very competitive team: they've been in the games right up until the death a lot of the times.

"And, being a derby game, we're expecting them to come at us while no one could ever question their effort.

"If they get you in good ball, they have a number of quality players: Paul McShane's a wonderful player for them, Junior Moors is playing back on an edge and is a real handful while Gareth O'Brien is in there so we know they still have good enough attack and points in there.

"Some of their recent losses have been contentious, too, so we're not under-estimating them."

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James Mitchinson