With just minutes remaining Leeds Rhinos had a chance to keep their Challenge Cup dreams alive against Wigan Warriors.
They were trailing 18-14 late on in the game against holders Wigan Warriors but Leeds could still pinch it and looked like they might do when Harry Newman carved open the Warriors. Like he did in the first half, Newman elected to throw the dummy despite having Richie Myler in support he was tackled and that was Leeds’ last real chance.
Harry Newman is undoubtedly one of the most gifted and most excited players in Super League but perhaps he lets his emotions get the better of him some times. It is well documented that the centre had a bust up with Tom Holroyd recently and today he and Richie Myler had a bit of an argument after he didn’t pass to the fullback. It poses Rohan Smith with an interesting conundrum as he manages an undoubtedly world class star.
All the focus was on Harry Newman but Bevan French was heroic with his tackle.
French explained what he did to fool Newman after the game on BBC:
“I was definitely thinking about the first half. In the first half it was the exact same scenario and I didn’t make the tackle because I tried to stay on my feet because there were three other people outside me so I ended up losing my feet and missing the tackle.
“When he came through it was the exact same scenario, so I gave him a head fake and luckily it paid off.”
Meanwhile, Martin Offiah paid tribute to French for this but said Newman was wrong:
“It was very interesting what he said about not setting his feet. Harry Newman, I scored a lot of tries in my time but that is wrong.”
This came as Jamie Peacock praised French heavily:
“I just thought everything he did today was 10/10.
“He is an individual player. He is the reason Wigan are in the next round.
“He is unplayable at times.”
