Five takeaways as Leeds Rhinos beat Wigan Warriors in Ash Handley’s testimonial

Leeds’ first outing of 2025 ended in victory as the Rhinos beat Wigan Warriors 22-4 in Sunday afternoon’s pre-season clash, with the game doubling up as Ash Handley’s testimonial.

From the Headingley press box, these are our five takeaways…

Don’t read too much into the result

On the face of it, a win against last year’s Super League and world champions is an impressive scalp for Leeds to take. The Rhinos deserved the win, and were impressive in patches, so deserve their praise.

But for at least 40 minutes, they played a very young Warriors side who – overall – stood up well against the test and could well have got a try to show for it late on after a break from Tyler Dupree, one of the more senior men on the field at that point.

Teenager Josh Cartwright spent a large chunk of the second half up against Ryan Hall, which tells you all you need to know.

Warriors rusty

For most of Wigan’s stars that played their part in the first half, this was their first run out since last October’s Grand Final triumph having not featured last weekend at Oldham, and it showed.

Jai Field and Liam Marshall were among a handful of players who let balls slip from their grip within the opening quarter-of-an-hour, with every high bomb causing an issue.

Zach Eckersley also struggled early on, though he did play at Oldham last week. Nonetheless, we’re sure by the time the new Super League season comes around, all of that rustiness will be out of the system for all involved.

Jake Connor shines

From a Rhinos point of view, there were a couple of standouts, but Jake Connor is the one we’ve singled out for a bit of praise here.

Eyebrows were raised when Leeds signed him by many, but more performances like this in 2025, and he’ll have silenced plenty of doubters by this time next year.

He grabbed the assist for the Rhinos’ opening try with a neat grubber kick, and seemed to be involved in pretty much everything they did well while he was on the field. Three conversions from four isn’t a bad return, either.

Ash Handley gets his moment in the sun

Handley has been a tremendous servant to Leeds, and it felt fitting that he opened the scoring in his own testimonial, which had a crowd of circa 5,500.

He’s been scoring tries in a Rhinos shirt for over a decade now, and head coach Brad Arthur will hope his co-captain can continue to chip in with a few more this year having been moved back into the centres.

We’d like to clarify that the heading for this little bit on Handley is false though, his moment today was most definitely not in the sun. It was absolutely baltic at Headingley.

Rhinos’ injury woes

Leeds will hope that Sunday’s win isn’t overshadowed by the injury picked up by new overseas recruit Maika Sivo.

The Fijian was forced off after clutching at his knee late on in the first half, with his injury sustained in attempting to stop a kick over the top from Bevan French.

Sivo had to be helped from the field by two of Leeds’ medical team, who had actually called for a stretcher. Concerning scenes if you’re Brad Arthur.