Leeds Rhinos face a big game on Friday as they head to the AJ Bell to take on Salford Red Devils. The Rhinos have won just one of their five opening Super League games and need a victory to get their season up and running.
Agar spent little time discussing the Reds but instead focusing on his own side, how they plan to respond and how the last week has gone. Ahead of Friday's game, here's everything Agar had to say.
The mood in the camp after last week
Performances like last week, sometimes as a coach you don't see them coming, you see a team that has prepared well in the week and coming off a win. It was a performance that left us mightily deflated and disappointed. But I can't praise them enough for their response this week. It's alright training well, we've got to back it up with a performance. But we've a bunch determined to get back on the horse, we can use last year's experience, we felt we were in a more difficult situation than this given amount of injuries, we've had a bit of that this year but we think we can draw on those experiences to know there's plenty of time left and we've got the capability to turnaround a difficult run of form at the moment.
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The reaction directly after the game
Our review, generally, you look at the game and the clips. But we had a chat last Friday about what we were doing well, what we weren't doing well, what we need to improve and who particularly needs to drive it. We have a good honest bunch of senior players who want to take responsibility and drive some of the collective efforts we're not doing at the moment.
You can carry the ball as strong and as hard as you want on your own but it's always more effective when you've got people behind you pushing for you. You can get off your line and try to be as strong as you want in a tackle but getting up in a straight line and in numbers, it's the collective effort part we know we just haven't been up to the mark consistently enough. Understandably, there are some parts of our game we're not quite in sync and some guys not in the form we need them to be in, but it's the collective effort part we want to focus on this week.
Whether he believes he's flogging a dead horse following his post-match comments
I think what you're getting there from myself is an extremely disappointed coach and an honest reflection of how I'm feeling at the time. Our sport is about ups and downs, showing some grit and resilience and we've shown that plenty of times in the past. Do I think we're at that point at the moment? Absolutely not. I'm happy to come through the pre and post-match press conferences and cliché my way through them if you like but I always try to portray my feelings as honest as I can at that moment in time. I don't think I'd be sat here now if I didn't think we had a situation that couldn't change quickly.
James Bentley's return and if he needs to adapt his game
We had a conversation when it first happened. What we don't want to do is reign in him where his game alters considerably as one of main reasons we brought him in was he competes so hard. Occasionally for him that's overflowed into penalties and errors and there's no doubt in the current climate of the game and the fact he's got some form in there, he's going to be watched keenly and he's going to be a marked man. He knows there's some level he needs to find aggression wise to get a good James Bentley performance but some boundaries in the current climate that he just simply can't step over.
The return of Bentley, Smith and Leeming
It's a boost, good players coming back in. I look at our lineup tomorrow and think it's a good lineup but the team can be greater than the sum of its parts too and I'm going to hark back to what I was talking about earlier, names on paper will always perform better when nobody cares who gets the credit and they're working coherently as a team and that's the big message from us this week. Do your job, know your roles, make sure you're accountable for your actions and perform as a team.
We feel there's time individually where our effort has been alright and effort that just needs to be done within the processes and unselfish efforts of the team. I can't reiterate enough, it's a simple message, we don't want to overcomplicate what we're doing with the ball but at the same time need to find more energy with push and support and playing with each other.
On Salford Red Devils
They're probably in a similar position to us off the back of a couple of disappointing defeats after a promising start to the year. It's a game with two teams desperate to get the two points.
The Challenge Cup draw
Not given it too much thought. We've got a home tie, we couldn't ask for too much more than that, but all our focus has been on this week, we want to make sure we get into that tie on a good footing.
Cameron Smith's influence
Cameron is a clever ball player and brings a good dimension to our attack in terms of ball movement and being able to bring our middle forwards onto the ball and tip the ball on. We clearly missed him last week and our halves missed the balance he brings to our team. We had no complaints with the tackle he got suspended for, but I think he's shown some nice touches throughout the year.
Focusing on playing well rather than winning
We need a good performance and the by-product of that will be a win. If you look at our season, we've had a lot of changes week by week. We had a pretty smooth pre-season, a full complement in training and then hey presto, four rounds in we have suspensions, injuries. I've no doubt we've had a little difficulty getting some consistency in our edges and spine, we know those guys have to go to the game at times.
Quite naturally in situations like this, it can create some anxiety within your team. It's natural, as sportspeople, you have to roll with the ups and downs and when you're not winning, of course, it's going to affect everyone's mood, the emotional effect of playing like we did last week has a detrimental effect on the team. But one of the challenges is to dust yourselves, bounce back and go again next week. We had a chat last week rather than bombard them with stacks of video and if I felt I had a team willing to throw every excuse out there that would be more worrying, but they're not, we're accepting the ownership together. I'm really pleased with the comeback this week with where we are and what we're doing but how we're going to turn it around. I could ask for more from them to be honest,
