Rhinos' 10-try win virtually guarantees a top-two finish in engage Super League, but Matterson reckoned they were given a helping hand by the referee, who sin-binned Cas hooker Scott Moore after just two minutes.

McClennan said: "The discipline was good, I thought we did well in that area.

"It was frustrating out there. There were hands on the ball and the 10 metres was non-existent at times.

"It was hard to get any momentum. The rucks have got to clean up for teams to play football – I just think it was a bit too scrappy.

"The boys were getting frustrated. It was a slow, slow ruck and it didn't need to be, but our discipline was good."

McClennan added: "We weren't thinking too much about securing the top-two place, though it was in the back of our minds.

"We just wanted to perform well and we know if we do, we have a good chance of winning a game. We did some good things. There was a bit of a flat period in the third quarter, but other than that I was pretty pleased with the players. The odd times when we were able to get some momentum, there were some nice tries put on.

"We are getting some confidence, but we know there's a whole lot more in us.

"Now it's about getting our timing right."

Three-quarter Ashley Gibson scored Rhinos' opening try on his return from a hamstring injury, which had sidelined him since March.

"He dotted down early, which is good for his confidence," said the coach."We are just building his game time up. He played 60 minutes on the right-wing, then we put him at left-centre and he had 20 minutes there and young Carl Ablett went into the back-row.

"We were able to give Ashley some game time and we were able to give Ali Lauitiiti some minutes as well and he looked pretty dangerous at times.

"All in all, it worked out all right for us. I would have liked to have given Ian Kirke more time, but he has picked up an injury to his foot and we'll see how he is on Monday."

Jordan Tansey came off the bench to score a hat-trick and McClennan said: "Jordan can play a lot of positions and his last try, an interception, kind of sums him up.

"He is a schemer and he comes up with plays like that. It was a good effort. He played hooker, he can play wing for us and we could have put him to full-back.

"He knows the systems to do a job at centre, or five-eighth or half-back, so well done to him.

"It comes in handy being so versatile. This is a hard team to make, but he does well."

But Tigers boss Matterson was unhappy with referee Alibert and his touch judges.

"I am still trying to work out why we got a man sent to the sin-bin," he said. "Leeds do not need a hand. You can see the wonderful tries they score when they get the opportunity to do that.

"We didn't get a chance and I'm pretty frustrated with that.

"The sin-binning was a massive moment, playing against this team who are building up for the semi-finals. I don't want to talk about match officials, but I don't think he got any help (from his touch judges)."

Matterson added: "I thought our effort in the first half was pretty good, but we did so much defending with being down to 12 men after two minutes.

"I didn't think we did a lot wrong when we were 10-0 down. We came back to 10-6 and at half-time I spoke about controlling the ball.

"I was very disappointed with our second half. We were chasing the game and we didn't have any ball."

Meanwhile, Rhinos' former Leeds Tykes forward Simon Worrall will qualify as a club-trained player next season, after being granted special dispensation by the Rugby Football League.

After joining Rhinos from their union sister club, Worrall – who is out of contract at the end of this year – was originally classed as a non-Federation trained player.

Under new rules, clubs will only be allowed eight non-Federation trained players next season and Worrall would have been counted alongside the likes of Danny Buderus, Brent Webb and Scott Donald on the overseas quota.