{"id":217582,"date":"2025-06-27T03:34:28","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T03:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/217582\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T03:34:28","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T03:34:28","slug":"leeds-rhinos-vs-leigh-leopards-predicted-teams-as-3rd-faces-4th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/217582\/","title":{"rendered":"Leeds Rhinos vs Leigh Leopards predicted teams as 3rd faces 4th"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Leeds\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Friday night sees arguably the match of the round take place, when fourth-placed Leeds Rhinos host third-placed Leigh Leopards at AMT Headingley.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Both sides have enjoyed a strong first half of the season, and are vying for a top six playoff spot come the end of the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A win for Leeds would see them leapfrog Leigh to re-gain third, whilst an away victory for the Leopards would increase the gap to fourth to three points.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both teams will see this fixture as must-win should they want success at the end of the season, and here is how we think the two will line up on Friday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Leeds Rhinos:<\/b><\/p>\n

The big news from the Rhinos camp is that Morgan Gannon is unavailable<\/a> after sustaining a shin injury in last week\u2019s away defeat to St Helens.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He is one of two changes to the initial squad, with overseas import Ethan Clark-Wood also missing from the 21. Youngsters Alfie Edgell and Presley Cassell are drafted in their place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Andy Ackers could make his return to the first team set-up after injury has seen him out of action since March. He featured in the Rhinos\u2019 last two reserve games, alongside Jack Sinfield and Cooper Jenkins.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Predicted Leeds Rhinos side:<\/b> 1. Lachie Miller, 23. Riley Lumb, 3. Harry Newman, 4. Ash Handley, 5. Ryan Hall; 6. Brodie Croft, 18. Jake Connor; 8. Mikolaj Oledzki, 14. Jarrod O\u2019Connor, 10. Keenan Palasia; 11. James Bentley, 12. James McDonnell, 28; Kallum Watkins. <\/p>\n

Subs: 9. Andy Ackers, 13. Cameron Smith, 15. Sam Lisone, 19. Tom Holroyd.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Leigh Leopards:<\/b>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Alec Tuitavake will serve a one-match suspension after accumulating six penalty points after the Leopards\u2019 away victory in Perpignan last weekend. He is the only change from the side that faced Catalans on Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Josh Charnley is still named in the initial squad, despite being out of favour under Adrian Lam and is second in the pecking order to Keanan Brand. The 34-year-old is Super League\u2019s second highest ever try scorer, but has only featured seven times this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Predicted Leigh Leopards side:<\/b> 1. David Armstrong, 2. Darnell McIntosh, 3. Tesi Niu, 4. Umyla Handley, 18. Keanan Brand, 6. Gareth O\u2019Brien, 7. Lachlan Lam, 32; Joe Ofahengaue, 9. Edwin Ipape, 10. Rob Mulhern; 11. Frankie Halton, 8. Owen Trout, 13. Isaac Liu. <\/p>\n

Subs: 12. Jack Hughes, 16. Matt Davis, 20. Ethan O\u2019Neill, 22. Ben McNamara.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Friday night sees arguably the match of the round take place, when fourth-placed Leeds Rhinos host third-placed Leigh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[6529,86174,4151,6531,79,6533,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-217582","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-leeds-rhinos","9":"tag-leigh-leopards","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-rugby-league","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-super-league","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114753232946945118","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}