From 5-9: Peter Smith's Leeds Rhinos player ratings after 32-4 demolition of Castleford Tigers

Tigers were very poor and didn’t test the hosts, but Leeds played well as a unit and there were some excellent individual performances, most notably from Rhyse Martin who played the full-80 in the second-row and bagged 20 points from a brace of tries and six conversions. Matt Frawley had probably his best game for the club and Ash Handley scored yet another spectacular touchdown.

Aided by Tigers’ inability to catch high kicks, Rhinos dominated the first half to go in 14-0 ahead and added 12 points at the start of the second to end even the remotest prospect of a comeback. Cas had more of the game after that, but it was a step backwards for them after some encouraging recent performances. An injured Paul McShane didn’t play and was badly missed.

Leeds captain Cameron Smith had an early touchdown ruled out when Handley was deemed to have knocked on from a kick by Matt Frawley, video official Lia Rush backing up referee Chris Kendall’s initial call. That was a dubious decision, but after eight minutes Brodie Croft’s high kick on the last was spilled by Louis Senior and from the scrum Frawley, Croft and Lachie Miller worked the ball to Handley who finished nicely at the corner.

Rhinos received the first penalty, after 23 minutes and it led to their second try, Croft’s footwork taking him past Liam Horne and between the posts from first receiver. Rhinos did the smart thing and took the two when Elie El-Zakhem reefed the ball from Justin Sangare in front of Cas’ posts five minutes before the break.

Two tries in the first six minutes of the second period took the game out of Tigers’ reach. First Frawley twisted over from close-range and then his pass was finished at full stretch by Martin. Cas, however, avoided a whitewash through a try by El-Zakhem with 16 minutes left.

There was a possible obstruction in the build-up, but Kendall indicated a try and Rush checked only the grounding. The last word fittingly went to Martin who ran a superb line on to a pass from Croft who was as influential as ever in a morale-boosting win. Despite Leeds’ dominance, Tigers had the better of the penalty count, six to five.

Leeds Rhinos: L Miller, Edgell, Momirovski, Newman, Handley, Croft, Frawley, Oledzki, O’Connor, Goudemand, McDonnell, Martin, C Smith. Subs Lisone, Sangare Nicholson-Watton, Johnson.

Castleford Tigers: Hoy, Qareqare, C Hall, Wood, I Senior, Milnes, J Miller, Griffin, Horne, S Hall, Mellor, El-Zakhem, Westerman. Subs Watts, Putt, Namo, Robb.

Referee: Chris Kendall (Huddersfield). Attendance: 14,529.