Brodie Croft’s first words as Leeds Rhinos ace explains exit

Brodie Croft has spoken for the first time following his decision to leave Leeds Rhinos for Warrington Wolves.

The halfback will switch clubs at the end of the season after signing a marquee deal with the Wire, but shut down any fears he would down tools at Headingley for the rest of his contract after producing a man of the match display in the 52-0 win over Huddersfield Giants.

Croft scored one and set up several others in a nine-try rout, taking his tally of tries for the Super League season to 14.

Croft spoke to Sky Sports after the game and explained the decision. He said: “It’s something I touched on with the boys, it wasn’t an easy decision whatsoever, I’ve lived over in Manchester for the last three years after I signed that big deal at Salford and the travel, it does hurt.

“So it was a family first decision, but it’s something that I made an important note to the boys at the start of the week that for the rest of this season, I’m committed to pulling on this Leeds jersey and representing them with pride each and every match.”

Croft wants fairytale Rhinos ending

Croft is putting himself in Man of Steel contention with his performances, an accolade he has already received once after winning it at Salford in 2022. However, his focus is on team silverware, not individual ones.

“To be honest, I really want to win that comp and we came close in 2022 when I did win the Man of Steel, but yeah, I’ll definitely put that aside to win a cup with this team.”

On the performance, Croft added: “It was a really pleasing performance from the boys, I mean, it was really nice to get the nil as well, something we’ve been working on for a while now, so defensively I thought we were really strong, I thought we probably dipped our toe a little bit at the start of the second half, but overall I thought we held it together really well and obviously couldn’t play some good footy on the back of that.”