Leeds Rhinos Head Coach Rohan Smith is a champion of clean rucks and a quick game and he felt like he was promised that in pre-season.
There was a crackdown on the ruck which Smith was all for but in his mind this crackdown has completely gone.
After his side were dumped out of the Challenge Cup by St Helens on Friday night, Smith raised his frustrations about ruck speed.
He said: “In the pre-season there was a crackdown and now people are back to rolling the ball through their legs. I don’t think we got a set restart in the game. If that rule exists, how is that, like, you know, offside matters sometimes, and then other times it doesn’t. It’s like a discretionary penalty all the time. I had concerns last week.
“The number of flops escalated, the number of, in not just our game. Markers standing next to each other again. All the things that were spoken about, I think have gradually or not so gradually regressed. But that’s, you know, what can you do?
He even added: “Offside doesn’t matter most of the time.”
Leeds Rhinos boss “hurt” by cup exit
Credit Imago Images
Some Leeds Rhinos fans will be more focused on the fact that it is the fourth year that Leeds have exited the cup at the first hurdle.
In fact, Leeds have not won a game in the Challenge Cup since they last won the trophy back in 2020 under Richard Agar.
Smith said that this is why he and his side were “hurt” after the defeat.
“Yeah, it’s very disappointing, that element of it,” he said, “There’s a lot of hurt people in that dressing room at the moment. You could feel that aspect of what we wanted to accomplish this year slipped away. So, it’s disappointing. There’s a narrow focus now on one competition, so we’ll dust off and go again next week.”
Speaking of next week, Leeds head over to Castleford Tigers. Last year the Tigers stunned Leeds at the Jungle for their first win of the season. Can they do the same again?
This will form part of an exciting round of Easter fixtures.
