Leeds Rhinos star Harry Newman has sensationally revealed that he played through the entire 2025 campaign, including the Ashes Series, with hernias which will require surgery to sort ahead of next season.
Newman did not miss a single game for the Rhinos in 2025, featuring in all 30 of their matches across all competitions.
His club season began on February 8 when amateur side Wests Warriors visited Headingley in the Challenge Cup, and ended on September 27 as St Helens dumped Leeds out of the Super League play-offs in unforgettable fashion with the ‘Wide to Wright’ try.
Then came England’s long-awaited Ashes Series against Australia. Newman sat out the first two Tests, but brought up his seventh international appearance on home soil in Leeds last weekend in the third and final clash against the Kangaroos.
Leeds Rhinos star played through pain barrier with grim injury as off-season surgery revealed
31 games later, the centre will now finally be able to get his hernias operated on. But the good news for the Rhinos is that he won’t have to miss any action, providing all goes to plan.
Speaking to the media, including LoveRugbyLeague, after Saturday’s 30-8 defeat against Australia at Headingley, Newman explained: “I’m going to have a couple of hernias fixed up.
“It’s only a four-week recovery, so my off-season will sort that out and I’ll be raring to go on the Tenerife pre-season camp.
“I’ve played the whole year with them. I’ve had two steroid injections to get me through.
“It’s a tough sport we play, but I wanted to put my best foot forward.”
Newman surpassed the milestone of 150 senior career appearances at the back end of the Super League season.
Having made his first-team bow for Leeds back in 2017, he’s now closing in on the next landmark figure of 150 games at club level alone.
He continued: “I’m ready to put my feet up for a bit but it won’t be that long, probably four or five weeks.
“Then I’ll be raring to go again. I’m someone who needs a holiday, then I need a routine.
“I think playing every game this season is a massive achievement personally. I’ll be excited to get back into Leeds on the back of what we started to build last season.
“We didn’t win anything, so we can’t say it was a successful year, but we improved massively by finishing fourth.
“There’ll be some new signings, I would think. It’s a great group, great coaches and I’m excited for another year here.”
