Brad Arthur calls on Leeds Rhinos to silence doubters amid fatigue concerns

The Rhinos led the way for much of the regular campaign, only to let the League Leaders' Shield slip from their grasp on the final stretch.

A drubbing by title rivals Wigan Warriors was swiftly followed by a surprise loss to lowly Hull FC, leaving Leeds with three straight home defeats heading into the play-offs.

But Arthur insists talk of fatigue is wide of the mark as they prepare for next week's semi-final at Headingley.

"I haven't heard that," he said. "But we're not tired.

"If that is people's opinion, there's only one thing we can do about it and that's to change it with an 80-minute performance.

"The big thing is that we've done a lot of good work and a lot of good things to get to being 80 minutes away from Old Trafford. We need to focus on all the work we've done to get ourselves into this position.

"The only thing people are going to remember now is how we play next week."

Leeds appeared on course for a perfect home campaign before falling away in the closing weeks.

Arthur insists the Rhinos' Headingley form is not a concern ahead of a do-or-die clash under the lights.

"I think if you said to most teams at the start of the year that they'd win 10 of 13 home games, they'd be pretty happy with it," added the Australian, whose side will discover their opponents after this week's eliminators between Wakefield Trinity and Leigh Leopards, and Warrington Wolves and Hull KR. "That's how I'm looking at it.

"I'd be concerned if we didn't get a look or create chances; we just didn't nail a couple of passes (against Hull). You know what happens, you score one and then you score three or four. Every time we didn't score, it gave them more belief to scramble harder.

"Our error rate was high but every one of those is probably a catch or pass away from a try. The difference is we had been nailing them.

"It was probably just a good wake-up call for us around making sure everyone focuses on their jobs individually."

Leeds' title hopes have been hit by the loss of star full-back Lachie Miller to a season-ending hamstring injury.

Ash Handley deputised against Hull but the Rhinos struggled to fire with a reshaped backline.

Arthur is hoping an extended break will iron out those teething problems.

"We're sticking with that (backline)," confirmed Arthur.

"I thought Ash Handley did a really good job at full-back. He ran for 300 metres. He got a couple of skill things wrong but they would have been the same if he was in the centres.

"Birdy (Jack Bird) made a line break right at the end of the game and didn't find a pass. Harry (Newman) got a flick pass to Ryan (Hall) that was knocked down. We created quite a few opportunities so I'm not concerned about the combinations.

"The four other teams will go at it pretty hard this week while we recover and prepare for our next game."