Leeds Rhinos fans angry at ref, blast St Helens 'spoiling tactics' after 6-0 Super League loss
The negative reaction to Leeds Rhinos’ 6-0 defeat by St Helens has been slammed as “ludicrous” by a member of the YEP’s fans jury.
While that juror felt Rhinos played “okay” and were a dropped pass or two away from winning, others reckon Leeds couldn’t get to grips with Saints’ spoiling tactics and made too many errors. And according to some of our panel, referee Jack Smith and his video assistant, Liam Moore, got big decisions wrong.
GAVIN MILLER
I think I’m in the minority again. I thought we were okay on Friday night. I thought Leeds were a couple of dropped balls away from winning, similar to the game at their place. A couple fewer errors and we walk away with four points from those two games. As it happened, we got zero big, but I don’t think that deserves the histrionics that followed on social media.
Some of the quotes I read after I got home from the game were ludicrous. Leeds were called a disgrace, bottlers and all sorts. For me, they restricted a good side to six points, were only ever a converted try away from levelling the match and, as I said above, a ball bounce, a caught ball or - dare I even say it - a ref’s call away from scoring tries.
Perhaps it’s different on TV, or perhaps I’ve watched enough winning and enough losing rugby league that I know when to be outraged and when to be magnanimous. I think I’ll sum this one up as ‘on another day we win that’.
DAVID MUHL
What is it about St Helens? They seem to have the curse over us. The one thing that hit me after Friday’s loss was, we must have patience and not get drawn in by spoiling tactics. It was, to be honest, not a great game to watch. I have never seen a Saints team set out to spoil, mess about at the ruck, hold down and happily give away penalties as much as this one.
There’s no denying their defence was top-class and probably one of the reasons they were happy to give away possession. They certainly tested the patience of the referee, who only sent one Saints player to the sin-bin. The tackle that sent Mikolaj Oledzki for a head injury assessment and subsequently to hospital with a suspected fracture to his face didn’t even warrant a penalty. And a lift and drop of Lachie Miller by Jonny Lomax only warranted a penalty when most times this would result in 10 minutes in the bin.
Our defence was pretty good though, only conceding six points. It just wasn’t our night, we did get over the line, but the video ref ruled the try out for a push. I have rewatched this several times and the replays say to me he was just challenging for the ball. His eyes were on it all the time. The more concerning thing to me was the possible injuries we suffered.
Oledzki looks like he’ll be out for some time and Miller went down with what looked like an ankle injury. Jake Connor, who chose this match to have his worst game in a Leeds shirt, seemed to be holding his side/ribs for most of the second half. There were good performances though: Kallum Watkins ran his blood to water, especially in defence and young Alfie Edgell continued his impressive run, despite receiving several head high tackles. It’s only one game and we should get back on track against Salford this week.
BECKY OXLEY
A hot and sunny Friday evening set the stage for the double-header featuring both women's and men's teams against the Saints. The heat in the stands was intense and I certainly wouldn't want to play in such conditions. The women's match looked like being a win for the Rhinos, but with just 45 seconds remaining, Saints scored and converted, clinching the game 22-20.
In the men’s match, I had hoped for another victory for the Rhinos and anticipated a close contest, predicting they would win by eight points. It was nip and tuck throughout, but unfortunately not in favour of the Rhinos. In my view, our attack was rather slow and disorganized, although we performed well defensively. There were numerous long passes to the wing that were missed, which could have changed the outcome. The referee made several questionable decisions and appeared to favor the Saints by overlooking many infractions. There were a few high tackles and I was particularly concerned about an injury to Mik Oledzki, which I hope is not as serious as it seems.
Next up is Salford at home, which on paper should yield an easy two points. However, I expect Salford to come prepared and I hope for an exciting match, ideally with cooler weather than we experienced last Friday night.
TOM GOLDSWORTHY
After an impressive win against Hull KR, Leeds were brought crashing back down to earth by a close defeat to St Helens, a team who seem to be a thorn in our side this season. It felt at times like a repeat of the encounter from three weeks earlier. While Saints did well to hold us to zero points, we were our own worst enemy all evening.
Instead of the patient, but clinical, performance we saw last week, we were rushing at every play and trying to force it. No team wanting to compete for the title can be committing 17 errors and completing only 62 per cent of their sets against a rival side. As well as Saints did, it was our disappointing performance that decided the game. We have seen how good Leeds can be this season; we need to be showing it on a consistent basis.
The loss of Mikolaj Oledzki to injury will be a huge blow for us and will really test how far we have come as a team. He has been ever-present this season and is arguably in the most consistent form of his career. Hopefully he’s back sooner rather than later as his performances will be vital if we are to achieve silverware.
Looking ahead to Salford on Friday, this is a game we should be winning with ease. Salford's issues have been well documented this season and look set to continue, which is unfortunate for them, but we should be capitalizing and getting back to winning ways. It would be good to see rotation in the side, giving some youngsters like Presley Cassell well-earned minutes in the first team, but getting the two points and building momentum for the play-offs comes first.
IAIN SHARP
Rugby league referees seem to have their own personal interpretation of the rules. The previous week, at Hull, it was forward passes. Last Friday, Jack Smith let any old messing about at the play-the-ball go largely unpunished.
Every once in a while, I meet up with friends on a Friday afternoon to reminisce about the good old days, with their experience going back to the great Leeds sides of the 1960s and me with my 80s-onwards knowledge. One of the participants is a former, highly respected amateur RL referee. He recently made a comment about how the refereeing guru of his day, Fred Lindop, dealt with the sort of messing about we saw on Friday night.
Basically, with a tackle complete, Fred would call ‘held’ and then silently counted to five in his head. Anyone still messing about - hands on the tackled player, not clearing the ruck or rolling away - was penalised. Simple, effective and everyone knew he wouldn’t stand for any messing about.
We’d probably have had a penalty count in the 20s if that had been properly applied on Friday night.
I know officiating a game can’t be easy, but top flight referees of today have more support and technology available to assist them to make the right calls more of the time. Perhaps we need to question the underlying reasons why they still make those basic errors and wrong decisions about fundamental aspects of the game and then do something about them?