2014 Preview - Leeds Rhinos

The question asked every year is about the age of this Leeds team. With the three key play makers and three of their four senior props all being over 30 its inevitable that it will be asked again, although Jamie Peacock's 2013 showed age isn't necessarily an issue.

Leeds did blood a number of young academy products in 2013 as well, notably Liam Sutcliffe at half back and Brad Singleton in the forwards. Sutcliffe played in 15 regular season games and all 3 of the Rhinos playoff games, scoring 7 tries and assisting on 11 more. Singleton also played 15 regular season games, and 1 playoff game, contributing an average of 20 tackles a game and over 6 metres per carry. Jimmy Keinhorst, Stevie Ward and Alex Foster all earned decent first team experience. Thomas Minns, James Duckworth and Elliott Minchella also made senior bows, all scoring tries. They seem keen however to let quite a lot of this youth developed on year-long loans around Super League.

The academy side had a strong season in 2013, so they are addressing the problem they face, although possibly not fast enough as the squad has got slightly older for 2014 - from an average age of 26.24 to 26.44. From the information we could find this makes Leeds the third oldest Super League squad behind Catalan and Salford. They have more players aged 30 or over than any other squad (eight).

The area of undoubted strength is the three-quarters where they have the best group in the league and after bringing in Tom Briscoe they have two of England's best three wingers.

Beyond Briscoe the major arrival is Paul Aiton, who cleaned up player of the year awards at Wakefield last season and has essentially swapped with Paul McShane, who has gone the other way.

In relatively little player movement, the other headline was the loss of two young players to New Zealand Warriors. This included Jordan Baldwinson who was one of the young forwards coming through, but now he is gone.

The cup has eluded much of this very successful Leeds side, so that might be a focus for this year before retirements start to happen.

League Leaders Odds: 11/2
Grand Final Odds: 6/1
Cup Odds: 6/1
(source: Oddschecker.com)

 

Mark's predictions:
League place - 2nd
Key man - Kallum Watkins
One to watch - Elliot Minchella

 

Tom's predictions:
League place - 3rd
Key man - Kallum Watkins
One to watch - Ben Jones-Bishop