LEEDS RHINOS went down 22-12 at home to the Salford Red Devils last night at Headingley.
The Rhinos were never in front during the game and now Leeds head coach Rohan Smith has explained the loss.
“It’s a difficult one to process, we had a few rushes of blood defensively that hurt us but overall I thought we defended very well,” Smith said.
“We played like a tam in attack but we didn’t quite maintain possession enough. We played against a good team that found a way to scramble. It was a good game of footy overall.
“It’s a bit of personal discipline with the ball to stop the errors. (James) Bentley thought he had got the ball down and it was classed as a knock-on, we had a short side opportunity which was a forward pass which was correctly called.
“The crowd roared a lot for forward passes today but the possession ones where we lost the ball in contact, those ones hurt us and we didn’t apply enough pressure to Salford who made their opportunities count.”
Smith was particularly frustrated with the ruck speed.
“I was asking about the speed of the ruck in pre-season and the reports back on the ten metres, marker and the ruck was trending in the right direction and that’s been confirmed in other correspondence I’ve had.
“I think our players understand momentum well, we don’t always feel the need to hold down when the other team has earned the right to play the ball. We will see what happens at the coaches meeting this week.”
The Leeds boss also gave his view on Blake Austin’s yellow card and Jack Sinfield’s facial problem.
“It was a very costly sinbin, it appeared to me like it was a sinbin.
“Jack clashed heads, he’s got a bit of a banged up face but he is feeling fine. It was a decent hit to the face and he will be out next week.”
