Wednesday 17 February 2016 17:04, UK
Rob Burrow is backing the Leeds Rhinos to bounce back in their World Club Challenge clash with the North Queensland Cowboys on Sunday.
Last year's treble winners have made a poor start to the Super League season, losing their first two games and going into this weekend's match on the back of a 56-12 thrashing by Widnes.
The Rhinos are dealing with a lengthy list of injuries, losing three more players against the Vikings, but Burrow says there is still enough quality in their squad to be able to compete with the NRL champions.
And he rejected talk that Leeds' performance against Widnes was down to them putting too much of their focus on this week's game.
"I know a lot of people in the crowd are going to be thinking that but that's not the case," he said. "It's never the case. We need every two points we can get in Super League, it's that tight.
"We were focused on playing well. But we didn't, we were terrible. Everything went wrong for us. I thought Widnes were really, really good and it made it a long day for us.
"But we can't dwell on that. Last week has finished now, we've got to move on to North Queensland.
"All we can do is focus on training really well this week, being positive and putting in a good performance at the weekend. I think the performance on Sunday was irrelevant to how we've been playing."
Tom Briscoe, Ashton Golding and Carl Ablett were injured against Widnes and could all be missing on Sunday at Headingley, but Burrow says Leeds' depth will ensure their replacements are all quality players.
"We're lucky enough to have a real strong squad," he said. "There's good players who miss out every week so what better opportunity for them to play well than against the potential best team in the world?
"It's a fantastic occasion and I'm lucky enough to have won three of them, one of them in front of our own crowd, like this time.
"It would be great to perform well in front of a jam-packed crowd, 99 per cent of whom are behind us, whether that be Leeds Rhinos fans or Super League fans in general because it is Super League versus the NRL. Hopefully we can do our bit and the other two can fly the flag for Super League as well."
