“What for?” – Rohan Smith shocked at suggestion James Bentley should have been sent off

Leeds Rhinos Head Coach Rohan Smith has had his say after his side defeated Catalans Dragons in what was a crucial fixture for the Rhinos.

The Rhinos came away with a gritty 18-10 win thanks to two tries from Ash Handley and a score from Harry Newman.

Handley is now on five tries this season but it wasn’t attacking flair that won the game but gritty defence and that was the view of Smith on Sky Sports:

“Thought we were very brave and maybe a bit over-ambitious with the ball, particularly the first half, but yeah, the defence was unbelievable. We had absolutely no field position in that first half. It looked like we were enjoying our defence. They were a good group. It was a very big team performance that night.”

Asked if his side stuck to the game plan, Smith added: “I don’t know. A few guys were watching the same one as me. We knew we needed to play a little bit against the Catalans. They were so strong in the middle and rugged with their defence that we needed to play a bit. I thought we well and truly overplayed our hand in that first half especially. But overall we did stick to the plan of playing some footy and we backed ourself and we trust our skill and they’re brave and they just get on with the next play whether it goes well or not so I like that.”

Rohan Smith has his say on Leeds Rhinos star James Bentley

Smith was seen speaking to James Bentley before the interview which led to Jenna Brooks asking what the topic of conversation was:

“Oh, a few things. I really like the way James’s game is going. He’s grown a lot as a person over this pre-season and early season. We were just chatting a little bit about getting caught up in the push and shove and that kind of stuff, and the retaliator usually gets caught out.

“But, you know, I thought he played pretty well tonight, James.”

She then asked if Bentley was lucky to stay on the field after a forearm in the face of Tariq Sims in retaliation.

When asked if he was lucky to stay on the field, Smith was not sure what Brooks was referring to and simply said: “What for?”

This led to Brain Carney joking that Smith had “scolded” Brooks.

He then had his say on the wider yellow cards: “I thought Justin Sangare was just very hard done by to go to the bin for his tackle. But I think the other ones are just mistakes.”