Rohan Smith addresses “wrong decisions” from officials at “huge moments”

Leeds Rhinos lacked attacking ideas as they lost to Leigh Leopards making it three defeats in a row following defeats to Hull KR and Salford Red Devils. It was the kind of game where Blake Austin would have been handy but the star strike player is now headed to Castleford Tigers.

The Rhinos lost 13-6 to the Leopards despite leading 6-4 at the break with a Tom Amone try and two goals and a drop goal from Ben Reynolds firing the Leopards to victory after tries from Jarrod O’Connor and Edwin Ipape in the first half.

After the game, Leeds boss Rohan Smith spoke on YouTube and explained what he felt went wrong:

“It was a good contest, tough physical game again we were there or there abouts.

“We were beaten in a couple of critical moments defensively but overall I thought our defence was excellent against a very good attacking team.

“We had some position ourselves but we probably didn’t execute as well as we would have liked and didn’t find the main road.

“I thought the rest of the game we struggled to get a roll on in the rest of the game.”

He further elaborated:

“It was a good, hard and physical game and we had a lot of young kids playing in that game today that will be helped by a game like this. It will help them.

“But I can’t fault the effort from our guys today for sure. There were three or four players who were severely under the weather going into that game and they dug in and never hesitated and there were plenty of young kids so there was plenty to learn and plenty to be proud of.”

He was also asked about two key decisions which led to Reynolds’ penalty – which was directly from a controversial high tackle – and an incident that led to the drop goal.

He said: “I thought both those were wrong decisions but they are fine lines and you would like to think that over the course of the season they balance themselves out but they were huge moments in the game.

“I only saw one replay of the Roberts tackle but the player reaction showed you. They are big moments but there were other big moments that we had control of.”