Rohan Smith has his say on crucial decision that cost Leeds Rhinos

Last night, Leeds Rhinos came up short against Hull KR in a pivotal game in the play-off race.

It was a clash between seventh and eighth in the table with both sides level on points going into the fixture and knowing a win would see them move level on points with Salford Red Devils in the all important sixth place.

Thus it was a must win but it was a game that Leeds would let themselves down. They trailed 16-6 in the first half before making it 18-12 by the break.

In the second half, they had all the possession and territory and scored through Ash Handley to make it 18-all.

However, the Rhinos squandered the rest of their opportunities and lost in golden point.

After the game, Rohan Smith was asked about the officials including one specific incident when Justin Sangare was judged to have knocked on underneath the Hull KR sticks in a moment that could have seen Leeds awarded a penalty.

Smith said: “It must be so difficult to referee when the general feedback is, and I’m not complaining.

“And then it just becomes the game’s on the line, like no one wants to give a penalty there. And I actually don’t know if that one should have been a penalty or whether it was just an untidy play of the ball, but there’s a lot of untidy play of the balls, which there has been all year in every game I’ve watched and it must be really difficult to adjudicate on that because it’s messy it’s ugly where in other games I watch from other competitions it’s much clearer about is it a knock on is it a penalty it’s much easier.”

He also highlighted what he feels needs to change:

“Penalise indiscretions without fear of racking up the penalty count. That’s the easy way because then defenders stop doing things because they’re worried about getting penalised. Where at the moment there’s a tendency that you just keep doing it and they won’t keep blowing them.

“Again, I’m generalising for the season there, I’m not complaining about tonight. We had chances to win, I thought we competed hard, I thought we had the better of the energy battle but we didn’t execute and that was the reason why we didn’t win tonight.

“The last coaches meeting we went to, it was pretty much all the coaches said the ruck was untidy, but since that moment, I’m not aware of any shift or change of angle in the way it’s officiated.”