Fans say Leeds Rhinos 'not as good as they thought they were' after St Helens loss, call on star to 'do more'

Confidence was soaring among the YEP’s Leeds Rhinos fans Jury after five successive wins, but the 18-4 loss at St Helens left them questioning whether the team are as good as they thought. And just as importantly, they wonder if the players themselves let recent performances go to their head.

Last weekend’s results saw Rhinos drop to fourth in Betfred Super League, a place below Friday’s visitors Leigh Leopards. Our panel still feel that’s a game Leeds should win, but they are expecting a tough evening.

TOM GOLDSWORTHY

In what was a performance straight out of the Rohan Smith era, Leeds fell to a disappointing defeat at St Helens. What was most frustrating to me is Saints didn’t perform well at all, we were just the worst of two bad teams on the night.

Every time Rhinos had the ball, we looked panicked and this is reflected in the high amount of errors we made. It was very sloppy from Leeds and proved what I said last week, that we are far from the finished product.

It felt like we were trying to force it on every play and that is far from the Leeds we have seen this season. Hopefully this is just a blip and the reality check we need to keep our feet on the ground and not let our improved performances this season get to our heads.

A player I want to be seeing more from is Brodie Croft. Apart from Leigh at home last season, I cannot think of a standout performance from our number six. There is no excuse this year for him to go missing in games. We have a competent coach and a quality team around him, we need to be seeing more from him. I’m not expecting multiple tries a game from him - although I wouldn’t complain if he wanted to start doing that - but it would be good to see him have more of an influence on games, like Jake Connor has done since his arrival.

Looking ahead to the Leigh game, we need to bounce back straight away and keep the pressure on the top two. We have made Headingley into a fortress this season and I expect us to right the wrongs from Friday night.

While Leigh are doing well in the table, I don’t think they are that good and we should be beating them with ease. Given our resurgence this season, there are no excuses not to be getting the two points.

DAVID MUHL

What happened on Friday night? There’s very little to say, really. I was confident of a win, but that confidence soon ebbed away as Leeds slipped back into playing the way we have for the last few years and errors and penalties gave St Helens the game.

We will rarely have a better chance of beating them. They were low on confidence and missing numerous players and we should have won at a canter. We have a truly awful recent record against Saints.

Brad Arthur was vicious in his post-match press conference, citing the players’ attitude as the main issue. Maybe our recent run of wins lulled us into believing we are better than we actually are. All Saints’ points came from Leeds errors and the penalty count was massively in St Helens’ favour.

No team can win every game and it’s more about how you recover and move on. We have three hard games coming up: Leigh, who have replaced us in 3rd place in the table, Hull KR and Saints again. Players don’t become bad overnight and we have a good crop who I am sure will overcome this blip. I have confidence in BA to put things right very quickly. On a non-Leeds note it’s good to see Huddersfield get their second win of their season after coming so close against Wigan last week.

IAIN SHARP

Unbeaten in five games, a warm summer’s evening with good conditions for rugby league and the opposition riddled by injuries: what could possibly go wrong for Leeds’ trip to

face St Helens on Friday night and the chance of chalking up six on the bounce? One hugely important aspect must be factored in and that is, it’s Leeds we’re talking about here.

There is a tendency, if everything is looking right, to self-destruct when you least expect it. That goes back many years. Leeds’ performance wasn’t helped by using the new experimental butter- coated ball, slowly melting in the warmth. Given the number of times players dropped the thing, it was perhaps the worst (first) half of rugby since Rohan Smith departed the coaching seat. There is that old chestnut about trying too hard, trying to force a try off every single play, when settling down, perhaps taking a tackle and regrouping would be far more productive in the

long run. This is one of the hidden skills Kevin Sinfield brought to the team in bucketloads, the art of captaincy, if you like and that ability to cool the team down and not push it when it was not needed.

The defeat does set up Friday’s clash nicely. Leigh at Headingley is fourth against third in the league table. It’s a chance to put last week’s game behind us and write it off as just a blip.

BECKY OXLEY

A Friday night journey across the M62 to Saints resulted in an outcome that was not what we anticipated or desired, but perhaps, in some respects, it was expected following our five-match winning streak. I suppose I am guilty of beginning to expect victories, especially after our successes in the last few rounds.

There were moments of hope and displays of skill, but overall, we were disorganized and didn’t truly seem to be engaged in the game. This perhaps illustrates that we are human and can experience a poor week. ‘Attitude’ was the term Brad Arthur used after the match and I believe he is correct.

Something didn’t quite align, and I suspect complacency may have played a role. We have slipped to fourth in the league and perhaps this will serve as a wake-up call to remind us that our performance is only as strong as the opposition allows us to be.

Hopefully we have shaken this off and in the match against Leigh on Friday we will return to our winning form and play as we know we can. However, it won’t be easy: it’s fourth against third and should hopefully be an exciting night at Headingley.

GAVIN MILLER

You know, I thought Leeds looked pretty good on Friday night away at St Helens. It was one of those fixtures that could have gone either way. Some safer hands, a few less dropped balls and a touch of luck goes the other way and Leeds were well in the game and close to victory.

The good news is Leeds were not miles off in defeat. It bodes well for the rest of the season, fourth in the league and, along with a few other surprise results, very much still in the mix. I’m not worried, one defeat in six doesn’t unsettle the team or the season.

We look forward, sort out the issues from Friday - which for me was only a couple of handling errors - and we move forward. From my apathetic attitude earlier this season, I am right behind this team all the way to Old Trafford