Richard Agar spoke to the press following Leeds Rhinos' defeat to Catalans Dragons.
Here's what he had to say.
General thoughts
It was a real stop start affair, the game never really got any tempo. We said to our guys at half time the first team that goes after this game and tries to get some tempo will bring it home but I never think it got that from start to finish. We bombed a lot of chances. I simply felt, especially when they were down to 12 men, we had a penchant for hitting lead runners nine times out of ten, I think if we go out of the back early and a bit of execution on the edge, I think we'll look back on the tape and see a lot of chances and space we didn't execute.
After last week our effort was up there, they were committed, the kick chase was good, they got numbers in the tackle and controlled it well, but our ability to execute tonight was so far off the mark. We didn't through poor execution, bits of skill being off and poor decision from the football.
One thing we've always been keen to press on the players is the Leeds DNA, playing the way that is synonymous with the club. I felt tonight, we come away saying we need to work really hard on this. We sat back too much, didn't create too much push and support and at times with the ball it was painful to watch, really painful to watch, that's something we've to work hard on. We've some combinations to work on, we've two new halfbacks in there, a new fullback, he's not new but not played for two years now and Richie has been such a pivotal player for us in our good ball attack that we need to make some adaptations there. But yeah, get back to playing with more speed and push and support.
Alex Mellor
I've been doing press after, he got his head in a bad spot in a tackle, we've sent him to hospital for a precaution, it's around his neck, he felt it straight away and some feeling in there. They've carted him off to the hospital to get some checks but the words were to me precautionary. Fingers crossed, we've not heard from him yet but we'll let you know when we do.
Catalans' controversial try
I thought he shoved him, but we're not looking at that, more the opportunity we had in good ball. Even in the first half we hit lead runners where if we go out of the back we have good depth and good chances there. At the moment some little bits aren't going for us but if we can keep the work ethic we'll work on the attack and we've got some players coming back who will undoubtedly give us some firepower we were probably lacking in and around the edges. Newman should be back next week, Fusitu'a should be back, Rhyse Martin always gives us plenty of punch, so I guess there's some personnel that will help us with that, but we know we've to find some more synergy throughout our team.
On remaining patient with the spine
There's more than one way to attack too, it's not all your halves and shifting the ball and executing on the edge and that's one of the things I'm talking about with the Leeds DNA, they've always played flat and fast, played ad-lib and second phase and it's been apparent that's what we're keen to promote but we've lost a bit out of our game at the moment. We just didn't get enough of that tonight, we had a few forays, Brad Dwyer gave us a few when he came on but not enough across the board.
