Leeds Carnegie will recover, insists Neil Back

Head coach Neil Back is confident Leeds Carnegie will bounce back to winning ways against Newcastle on Sunday.

After a terrible performance in their 39-0 defeat by Saracens, Leeds now have six days until they face their relegation rivals at Headingley.

Back told BBC Radio Leeds: "We are against a team that aren't playing well and are lacking confidence.

"But we are not lacking in that, so we have got turn things around and get the win against Newcastle."

Leeds became the first team this season to fail to score a single point in a Premiership match and also allowed Saracens to claim their first try scoring bonus point of the league campaign.

However Back refused to blame the sacking of director of rugby Andy Key, just three days before the game, as the reason Leeds were so poor.

"Bearing in mind that news we had in mid-week we had good preparation this week," he said. "We had a good team run ahead of the game and pre-match was as a good as it's ever been this season. So there is no correlation between the two at all.

They [Steve Thompson and Hendre Fourie] want to play for Leeds Carnegie this weekend, but that's in other people's hands, not ours

Neil Back

"We are at home for the next three games, that's key. We now need to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down, review what went right, what went wrong and take all that into next week."

The head coach also has an outside chance of flanker Hendre Fourie becoming available for the relegation clash at Headingley.

With England captain Lewis Moody expected to make his return from injury against France in the Six Nations this weekend, Fourie will face a big fight to keep his place on the bench.

And while Steve Thompson will remain with England for the game, Fourie could be released by Martin Johnson and feature for Leeds instead.

"It's very tough for our England guys because they don't get released by England until Thursday, so have very little time to train with us and learn the tactics for our next game," added Back.

"Hopefully if they are released in the future we get them for the week so we can have a proper build-up to the game.

"But credit to them because they want to play for Leeds Carnegie and they want to play this weekend for us, but that's in other people's hands, not ours."