Burrow confident Leeds can test Cowboys

Leeds skipper Rob Burrow is hoping that the Rhinos can throw some challenges at North Queensland on Sunday by playing their own style of rugby.

Burrow’s men face the Cowboys in the concluding game of the World Club Series, and the diminutive pivot believes that the Yorkshire outfit have plenty of attacking threats of their own.

“We know we need to be great this week,” he told Love Rugby League.

“We’re playing against a world class team. We need to be world class ourselves.

“We’re going to play how we play best.

“We need to deal with North Queensland and how they play, but we’d like to think they they have to deal with what we throw at them.”

Lining up against the Rhinos are great players like Jonathan Thurston. Burrow believes that Leeds will be inspired by playing against such rugby league titans.

“You admire any player from any team, whether it be Super League or NRL,” he said.

“Seeing someone like Thurston, and I could name a number of other players in his team, playing against them you need to be at your best.

“If there’s ever an incentive to bring out your best performance it’s against players like that.

“So we’ve got some young halves in there at the moment, and they’ll see this as a great opportunity to play against the world’s best.”

Leeds will be heading into a final without their own titans, like Jamie Peacock, Kevin Sinfield and Kylie Leuluai, who all moved on to pastures new at the end of the 2015 campaign.

“It’s the first time we’ve played in a final without those guys,” Burrow said.

“But we’re totally aware that they’re not there, and we’ve got to stop thinking that they are there.

“We’ve moved on now. They’ll never be forgotten, they were absolutely fantastic players, but we can’t think about that going into this game.

“We’ve got to deal with the squad that we’ve got out there.

“We’ve got a few injuries, but we’ve got a great squad going out there.”

With the squad also affected by injuries, Burrow is backing the younger members of the Rhinos squad to step up and put down a marker on Sunday.

“When I was younger we got our opportunities through injuries, and it’s a great opportunity for those guys to make an impact on the first team,” he said.

“People like Jordan Lilley and Ashton Goulding, who sadly got injured on Sunday, are making an impact.

“The good players generally do. The good players need one chance and they take it, they show what they can do.”