Rohan Smith explains why Leeds Rhinos lost to Hull KR

Tonight was a vital game in the play-off race as Leeds Rhinos lost to Hull KR and Wigan Warriors defeated Warrington Wolves.

The drama came at Headingley where a Brad Schneider drop goal in golden point extra time on debut broke Leeds hearts.

The result sees Hull KR move two points ahead of the Rhinos who remain eighth two points off the play-offs though that could become four points if Salford Red Devils beat Leigh Leopards.

Speaking after the game, Rohan Smith explained why his side came up sport:

“Any golden point loss is hard to take because you know you’ve gone the distance but not got the job done,” Smith said.

“I thought on a difficult night, conditions wise, we let ourselves down with a couple of those tries early in the game where I didn’t think we were in any trouble defensively but but we had one play poor and that hurt us a couple of times for some points.

“I don’t think they scored in the second half try did they? So it was good positive and the way we were attacking with our defence at the back end we kept creating opportunities for ourselves to win it but clearly we let ourselves down with some possession skills throughout the game.

“In the first half there was probably a couple of overplay errors that hurt us and then the second half was some mess around the play of the ball that hurt us.”

Smith also highlighted Leeds’ game management as partly the reason for the defeat:

“I think the game management stuff was probably before that in regular time. We did well, we defended really well in the Golden Point there and credit to the young kid.

“He’s been here for a week and he took both field goals, hit the underside of the bar and almost just hit the top side of the bar on the second one, they were both wobblers but got the job done under pressure.

“That period we actually defended well but yeah let ourselves down prior to that.”

The Rhinos now have a week off.