Rohan Smith makes big claim about Headingley crowd

Rohan Smith praised the atmosphere at Headingley yesterday after Leeds Rhinos pulled off an impressive comeback win against Catalans Dragons ending the French side’s unbeaten start to the season.

He said that the crowd had an impact on the result of the game saying that it was the biggest impact from the crowd he had seen during his time at the club.

He said after the game:

“It was buzzing today. That was the most impact I have felt in my time here.

“They were riding it hard because we were playing well. They love to see the short kick off and the cross field kick and the 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 style, that style of people expressing themselves and playing a bit.

“They like to see that. They were probably agitated a bit with some other things going on. It was on fire.”

When asked if he believed his side could turn things round in the second half as they trailed 22-8, he said:

“One hundred percent. At halftime I thought we were attacking well. We were troubling them and we scored a couple and had one or two other close calls.”

He went on to speak about his side’s defence and the tries they conceded including his assessment of the potential double movement from Mitchell Pearce:

“Defensively I thought we were pretty sound in the first half despite conceding four tries. One of those was an attacking error, two others were on the last play when we lacked a bit of awareness on the run on last plays and the other one was a tough to call double movement that went up no try.

“The scoreline is not always reflective. Everyone always wants to talk about the result or the score. It is not always a reflection of the game.

“It was a good close game in the first half.”