Rohan Smith impressed by officiating yesterday as controversial rule surprisingly not used

Yesterday Leeds Rhinos came up short against Wakefield Trinity in a festive friendly at Headingley.

Despite this, Head Coach Rohan Smith was rather happy with the game and also the officiating from Ben Thaler.

There were no Six Agains which was highlighted after the game to which Smith said:

“There were almost no penalties apart from a token one at the end which he got wrong. I thought he let the game flow. It was slow with flops and second man in. But it was good that there wasn’t a lot of penalties.”

He also revealed that everything went according to plan during the game from his perspective:

“I had hoped to get an indication of individuals of where they are at and I think I got a pretty accurate look.

“The experienced guys at the top of our squad showed some promising signs.

“We chopped and changed a lot so we had no cohesion which was expected.

“We had a plan for each player and we tried to stick to that and we did. That meant we couldn’t take off too many players at the same time because you need players to play that position.

“Given we were restricted to 21 players there were limits to cohesion.”

He also spoke about the players who played in different positions in the game which included the likes of Derrell Olpherts and Ash Handley:

“There were a few and the players who did that need to know how to play more than one position and I see these games as an opportunity to do that.”