Leeds Rhinos on verge of 'most exciting' era
That is the prediction from Rhinos’ chief executive Gary Hetherington who is optimistic about the club’s playing prospects after a series of disappointing seasons.
The team which won eight Super League titles, three world club championships, a hat-trick of league leaders’ shields and the Challenge Cup twice between 2004 and 2017 has now broken up. Rhinos fought relegation battles in three of the past four seasons, but were third in Betfred Super League - on a four-game winning run - when rugby league was suspended due to coronavirus.
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Hide AdTheir last game before the shutdown was a 66-12 thrashing of Toronto Wolfpack which took their points tally to 176 in four matches, with only 30 conceded, following an opening round loss to Hull.
“We’ve had a disappointing last two years, but I do believe this squad could be our most exciting and entertaining team to be produced in the last several decades,” Hetherington said.
“It is unlikely to be the most successful, because how do you become more successful than the teams we’ve had in the recent past, particularly the one that won the treble in 2015?
“But I do believe it has got so much promise and potential and in terms of providing quality and entertaining rugby league, this could be our best team ever.”
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Hide AdHetherington took over Leeds, along with chairman Paul Caddick, at the end of the first Super League season and will have been at the club 25 years this autumn.
“The club was in a perilous position at that time, both on and off the field,” he recalled. “That has been rectified over time and when we look back now we probably underplay the scale of that challenge, because it was a significant one.”
Leeds were not the only team teetering on the brink when Super League began.
“The game financially was in a mess back in the mid-1990s and it needed something big, like Super League and the Sky TV deal, to transform the game,” Hetherington added. “It did, it gave the game an opportunity and it has progressed from that.”
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