Ben Littlewood will be given a chance to impress for Leeds Rhinos when they take on Bradford Bulls this weekend.

The forward will step up in the absence of Chris Hankinson, who failed a head injury assessment in the surprise defeat to Castleford Tigers last time out, meaning he is unavailable in the back-row.

It will be Littlewood’s third appearance of the season, with his last outing coming in the Las Vegas victory over Hull KR.

“He (Hankinson) stumbled in a tackle and, you know, the rule is there straightaway regardless of how he’s pulled up. It’s a Category 1. So he’ll miss this week. But again, he’s fine now and he’s all good. He’s tracking to be right next week.

“It was his (Littlewood’s) first game back in the reserves on the weekend and done a really good job for us. So we’ll put him in, we’re going so well in terms of the injury front and then, you know, you get five or six and it just opens opportunities for other guys, which was always going to happen. And they just had to be patient, train well and wait for their opportunity. Now some of these guys are put in this position, it’s up to them to own it.

“These are the chances that they’ve been waiting for. And we’ve got all the confidence in the world that Ben will start there. You know, we’re not going to start him on the bench and ease him in. We’re just going to put him straight there on that left side and get a full week of training and he’ll do a good job for us.”

Jarrod O’Connor to return

Arthur also confirmed Jarrod O’Connor will return after a concussions stand down of his own, a timely boost after losing Danny Levi last week to a scary-looking injury from which he has been cleared of major injury.

“I think we’ve done the right thing all year, managing those two, you know, mixing up who starts, who doesn’t, managing their minutes.

“You know, one week someone might get 50 and the other one gets 30 and then it might be 40-40 or they might both get 50, depending on Jarrod going to 13. So I feel like we’ve done a good job managing those guys. They haven’t been pushed, they’re not exhausted, their bodies aren’t deteriorating because of load.

“So Jarrod is probably excited he’s had a week off because they both want to be able to play 80 minutes every week. So, you know, Jarrod will get his opportunity to get some good game time into him before Danny’s back.”