Brad Arthur 'delighted' to see James McConnell shine in 28-0 Leeds Rhinos win over Salford
"He's been probably one of our better players without being noticed a lot. He's been doing a lot of work defensively."
Brad Arthur expressed his delight at seeing James McConnell prove the star of the show after the back rower scored four tries in Leeds' 28-0 victory over Salford at the AJ Bell Stadium.
Having notched the only try of the first half, McDonnell made it a hat-trick by going over twice more early in the second.
And after Lachie Miller added Leeds' fourth try, McDonnell crossed again late on - before then doing so once more in the final few moments, only for the effort to be ruled out for a forward pass.
Rhinos coach Arthur said: "I'm really happy for him because he's worked really hard defensively over the last month.
"He's been probably one of our better players without being noticed a lot. He's been doing a lot of work defensively.
"He does a lot of tidying up work, I challenged him on that again tonight, and I was glad that he got the rewards of a few tries. He's an example of a guy that if you keep working hard, things will come your way."
Arthur added of a contest in which Leeds had Keenan Palasia and Mikolaj Oledzki sin-binned in either half: "It wasn't the greatest spectacle but we kept them to nil and sometimes that can be tough to do in these sort of games, when it's risk-free football."
"We didn't look as crisp as I'd like us to look, but certainly in the second half, once we just relaxed a little bit, we played a bit more direct. There's plenty there to like."
While Leeds move into the Betfred Super League play-off places, going up to fifth, financially-troubled Salford stay second-bottom following their sixth loss from seven outings in a season they have spent much of operating under salary cap sanctions.
The match was watched from the stands by Kallum Watkins, the now-former Red Devils captain who earlier in the week had become another high-profile departure as he rejoined Leeds.
Coach Paul Rowley said: "I think we created quite a a lot of opportunities, in the first half in particular, and again, it's hard to not look back and say if you had different personnel, some x-factor in there, then you'd probably nailed a few of them.
"We turned over quite a bit of ball in some poor areas and gave them too much field position and opportunity that a team like Leeds will always punish you eventually.
"But, I think, again, the commitment and effort, resilience, all those things are there in abundance. It's just far from polished. We'll just continue to keep driving that and not give up on trying to improve it."
Rowley, who reiterated he has been hopeful of seeing a resolution to Salford's financial crisis this month, added: "All the big-money players have left, so probably it puts a little bit more element of control in our power. I think that team that played today was about £780,000, I'm not sure you can get much lower than that in terms of cost or cap.
"I've got to have a positive mindset, otherwise, there'd be no point doing anything."