Rohan Smith highlights “critical calls” from officials after defeat

Any hope Leeds Rhinos had of finishing in the top six took a significant hit when they lost to Hull KR on Friday night.

In many ways it was a game Leeds should have won. They were favourites at home against a Hull KR side in a bad run of form and who have a few injury problems.

They also had the weight of possession and territory in the second 40 and looked set to add to the only try of the second half which went the way of Ash Handley on his 200th career appearance.

In the end they were made to rue their missed opportunities as Brad Schneider gave Hull KR a win with the drop goal in golden point.

Speaking after the game, Rohan Smith said of the defeat:

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

“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.”

When asked if it was a game his side should have won, Smith highlighted the “critical calls from the officials.”

“I think we should have tonight and you know there’s a couple of critical calls which you know I believe there’s a few critical ones last night on TV that will probably get more exposure because this one’s not on TV but the ruck’s been untidy for a good period of time now and continues to make hard calls for the referees.”