Brad Arthur refuses to blame Danny Levi injury for Castleford loss as second setback emerges

Leeds Rhinos coach Brad Arthur refused to blame Danny Levi’s horror injury as the reason for their shock defeat to Castleford: instead insisting their ‘attitude’ in regards to defending let them down.

The Rhinos suffered a shock defeat to their local rivals on Sunday afternoon. Despite leading comfortably on multiple occasions, Jason Qareqare’s late try for the hosts proved significant, with Castleford eventually winning a classic at Wheldon Road 36-34.

However, Leeds were in control of the game and leading 20-4 when Levi was knocked out cold following a heavy collision on the field.

The game was stopped for over ten minutes before Levi was stretchered off and later taken to hospital for assessment over possible neck damage – though Leeds insisted that was precautionary at this stage.

Arthur addresses Levi exit

The Rhinos did not have the same rhythm or approach after the game restarted, but Arthur refused to use it as an excuse.

“The result will say it did have an impact. But we can make better choices around that stoppage,” he said.

“We just lacked concentration, there certainly wasn’t anything through fatigue because two tackles later they score. We get down the other end, lose concentration and turn the ball over with a poor end to the set. They go up the other end and score and it made a contest of it at half-time.”

When asked about Levi’s health, Arthur said: “He’s gone to hospital and he’ll need to have a scan to rule out neck issues, I suppose that’s the concern. But hopefully it’s all precautionary. He came to when he came off the field but he had a bit of numbness which is probably likely when you get a whack like that.

“It wasn’t nice (to see it). You could see a few of the boys, they had to walk away and they didn’t like the look of him when he came off the field. His partner was so strong in the tunnel. We just hope that he’s okay.”

Arthur slams aspects of Leeds display

Arthur admitted Leeds’ defensive approach was sub-standard at best, insisting their desire to defend as a collective was significant in the reasons behind their surprise defeat that means their gap at the top is now just two points.

He said: “We started well, bombed an opportunity under the posts to get 18 points clear and we kept inviting them into the contest. We were physically good with the ball but we didn’t want to be physical without the ball.

“Our attitude to defence wasn’t good enough. We got caught wrong system-wise but that was a reflection of poor collision and poor tackling and some poor choices around effort in defence. We weren’t worried about being connected and we were leaving it to someone else.

“It’s not a concern but it’s something we need to work on. Every week there’s parts of your game you need to fix up and work on. If it’s happening every week it’s a different story but I think it’s easy to fix, it’s an attitude check around defence.”

Leeds will be without Levi next week against Bradford – and they will also be missing Chris Hankinson after he suffered a Category 1 HIA, which ended his afternoon prematurely and means he must now enter the return-to-play protocol.