Thursday 21 June 2018 16:53, UK
Leeds head coach Brian McDermott insists there is no anxiety in his squad despite the Rhinos falling to their sixth straight defeat in a thriller against Catalans Dragons.
The Super League champions have seen their top-four hopes fade amid an injury crisis and are now in danger of finishing in the Qualifiers for the second time in three seasons after the 28-25 defeat by the Dragons.
Leeds were on course for a win that would have taken them five points clear of Catalans after taking a 24-10 lead into half-time.
But the inexperienced Rhinos struggled to contain the French side after the break and fell to another narrow loss courtesy of Kenny Edwards' second try late on.
McDermott has remained upbeat throughout Leeds' miserable run of results and he refused to be critical of his team after Wednesday's damaging defeat.
While he acknowledged the Rhinos' perilous position in the table, he is confident they will avoid a relegation battle.
"It's a worry, of course," said McDermott. "But again, as I've been saying most weeks, I think we're in good shape.
"When bodies come back and we have more of a regular team, we'll be good.
"The anxiety that we had a couple of years ago because of the fear of being in the bottom four is not there for us at the moment.
"But everybody is concerned. The crowd were brilliant tonight and are giving the players a huge amount of backing which is appreciated by the players, but I understand they're concerned.
"Everybody's worried where we're going to be at the end of the season but my message to everyone is: we're in good shape.
"One or two things might go our way and one or two bodies come back from injury and we'll be good."
McDermott admitted he feels for his young players but believes they could benefit from this difficult period in the long term.
"We've got some good young juniors who are not having an easy run," he added.
"They're not being blooded into a team that's winning lots and lots of games; they're being blooded into a team that's losing tight games, heartbreaking losses.
"We've almost got some distraught senior players in there. They're sick of losing. Our young players experiencing this is good for them."
The Dragons were coming off a narrow loss to Huddersfield and head coach Steve McNamara knew defeat was not an option against another rival for the top eight.
"It would have made it very difficult if we'd lost tonight," he said.
"It was a huge game for us and we knew the task in hand. Headingley is a tough place to come and Leeds had a good performance against St Helens, played extremely fast.
"They did that in spells today, but we just knew we had to find a way to win the game and at half-time we still had the belief we could do that.
"We were pretty dominant throughout the game and were the better team."
