Youngsters on standby to step up for Rhinos if required

The Super League champions head to Hull FC tomorrow night in danger of losing a fourth successive game for the first time in six years.

Their faltering form has not been helped by injuries to a raft of top performers, including ex-Great Britain captain Jamie Peacock, England international Carl Ablett, Australian second-row Brett Delaney and talented teenager Stevie Ward.

England Knights winger Ben Jones-Bishop has still yet to play this season due to a blood clot, while experienced prop Darrell Griffin was allowed to join Salford City Reds earlier this month.

Rivals Huddersfield Giants, Bradford Bulls and Hull KR have all recently turned to loan deals but McDermott insisted “We won’t be doing that, not with the juniors we’ve got here.

“We have some outstanding individuals in the Under-19s.

“Hopefully, we don’t continue getting injuries but if we do we’ll step into those Under-19s.

“We’ve really good prospects coming through and that’s what we want to put our faith in. That’s where our future is.”

Indeed, that Academy side leads its championship having won 13 of their 14 games so far, while 18-year-old Liam Sutcliffe made his first Super League start in Sunday’s narrow 20-16 loss against leaders Wigan Warriors.

McDermott hopes to have Delaney fit for the trip to the KC Stadium and he is not unduly worried by his side’s lack of results having pushed Wigan so close at Magic Weekend in one of the games of the season.

“Up until Wigan there were a few areas (of concern) but I thought defensively we were very good, both technically and emotionally too,” he explained.

“We picked ourselves up off the canvas a few times and stopped tries and there were plenty of positives.

“I know it hurts people when coaches talk about performance as I know they’d prefer us to talk about winning all the time.

“But in actual fact you need to perform so you can work on certain things the following week. You don’t want to be starting from scratch every time.

“What that performance against Wigan did was enable us to feel confident about certain things in our game that we can now move on with at Hull.

“We have got to be a bit meaner with our ball control and less loose, but we are confident.”