Tykes out to get it right this time

LEEDS Tykes are embracing their big club mentality and heavy favourites tag ahead of the new season getting underway on Saturday.

- BEN JAYCOCK

Pete Seabourne’s side led the way unbeaten for 23 rounds before coming unstuck to title rivals Rotherham Titans and were leapfrogged by the now National One side. It was a disappointing end to a season where they had excelled and taken the league by storm but Seabourne says lessons will be learned from last season’s shortcomings.

He told The Rugby Paper: “Missing out on the title aside, it was a very successful season for us because it was like a reset year. This year will be a different challenge, newly promoted Harrogate provide another local derby for us. We’re looking forward to getting going.

“Promotion is the end goal and it’s going to be tough. Other teams have recruited well but we’ll be favourites and rightly so. We’ll be focusing on ourselves, so hopefully we can take that one step further. We need to get our ducks in a line for that to happen as last year we fell short. We have to be good for the whole 26-game season.

“There’s a lot of talent around Yorkshire, so I’ve recruited mainly from higher level academies and have found some very good players that have fitted in surprisingly well during preseason.”

Not only did Leeds miss out on the National Two North title, they also lost out in their mini-league ‘Yorkshire Regiment Trophy’ which includes teams in the league from the county with Sheffield Tigers, Sheffield, Wharfedale, Hull, Hull Ionians, Harrogate and Otley fighting it out with Leeds next season.