Leeds aiming to kick on to “next level” in 2021, says Sean Long

Leeds assistant coach Sean Long says the Rhinos want to take their game to the next level this season.

Former Great Britain and St Helens is enjoying his first pre-season with Leeds since permanently joining the club as an assistant coach to Richard Agar.

The Rhinos won the Challenge Cup at Wembley last term, but Long wants them to be even better in 2021 and the betting tips won’t have them far off the favourites.

Long said: “We know where we’re at. We know where we need to improve to compete at a high level week in week out with the likes of St Helens and Wigan.

“With the recruitment that we’ve done and the way we are going about things, fingers crossed we can be pushing to challenge those top two.

“Its early days yet, everyone else has recruited really well across the board in Super League.

“We want to go to the next level, we won the Challenge Cup last year and got a little bit fatigued after that but we want to go to the next level this season.”

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Long has enjoyed getting his teeth stuck into the Rhinos over pre-season so far, and has been impressed with what he’s seen.

He added: “We are only a week or two into pre-season but the vibe is good, the intensity of what we want to play with next season is there.

“We are doing a lot of skills and games and I’ve brought a lot of new structures in which the boys have taken on board straight away.

“I’ve been really, really impressed with the intensity of the lads in training and also the intensity about how they do things. We’ve got some good characters in the team and I know we are only a week or two into pre-season but the boys have been bob on.

“We’ve been doing uptempo drills where we have been testing their skill level under pressure. We’ve been doing lots of different drills and bringing in new ideas.

“I’ve got loads of different drills that I’ve accumulated over the years by working under people like Justin Holbrook and Matt Parish. They are really fast drills to test the skill level under pressure and the boys have been fantastic.”

The 2021 Super League season gets underway on March 25.

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