Rohan Smith blasts Leeds Rhinos display

A year ago, Leeds Rhinos had beaten Wigan Warriors and were on their way to Old Trafford but a year later, after a 50-0 defeat to Wigan Warriors has been followed up by a 61-0 defeat to Catalans Dragons yesterday.

This has raised a lot of questions about where the club go from here and what they need to do to right the wrongs of an utterly lukewarm campaign.

After the game, Rohan Smith said: “We’re extremely disappointed with the outcome and the performance. We expect a lot better of ourselves. I think at times we lacked some physicality early on, I thought, to go meet them.

“Then at other times we were just trying too hard individually to solve things, which actually made things a lot harder.

“All of our good defence throughout most of the season and the run we went on last year was based around being very connected and team-orientated with our defensive work and we just lost that a little bit of late.

“A lot of young players, some players that are playing a bit injured and whatnot and trying too hard to get down on confidence and then trying to solve things themselves at times which often makes things harder.”

He also spoke about the club’s transition:

“Yeah, the transition was not intended to have four senior players leave during the season and be unavailable, then you throw five or six injuries on top of that, that’s 10 or 11 of your top 22, 23 players not available. That was never a plan to have that.

“We’re learning some hard lessons and the experiences are tough. They’re tough for all of us and tough for the fans and everyone connected to the club.

“Almost everyone in their career has been through some part of this. Almost every fan has been through some part of this, whoever you follow or whoever you play for or work with. It’s a rough time but we’re just going to fight out of it and finish the season strongly next week.”

It was the club’s worst defeat in Super League history and the first time in the summer era that Leeds have been kept scoreless in back to back games.