JJB defiant as Leeds struggle in Super League

Leeds Rhinos may have made their worst start to a Super League campaign since 2000, but veteran forward Jamie Jones-Buchanan is telling fans to not write the team off yet.

Leeds have lost four out of five Super League games, and currently it in 10th place in the table.

They were beaten at Wigan on Friday evening, but ‘JJB’ thinks that there are mitigating factors to be taken into account.

“The obvious thing people are saying is we are missing certain players from years gone by,” he told the Yorkshire Evening Post.

“But I was there right at the beginning, when a lot of those players were young. There were probably five or six years before we did anything special, even with that group of men we are missing at the minute.

“I don’t think it will be that long before it comes round and this group gels and performs at their peak.

“There is a lot of work to do, things aren’t gelling at the minute, but we understand why that is.

“There’s a lot of variables I could list, getting flooded out of our base, for example.

“We have got a group of young players coming in and having a baptism of fire and we do have injuries.

“They are not excuses, there’s no reason why we can’t go to Wigan and work hard and put in a good performance even with those variables.

“We weren’t good enough, but don’t write us off yet.”