'Disappointed, frustrated, angry, saddened': Leeds Rhinos fans fume after drubbing by Warrington Wolves

It was Rhinos’ third successive home defeat and, with a quarter of the season gone, they are a disappointing eighth in Betfred Super League, as well as out of the Challenge Cup. Some of our Jury are now questioning coach Rohan Smith’s tactics and they agree there’s a huge amount of work to be done in the two weeks before Leeds’ next game.

GAVIN MILLER

It’s so frustrating, so very frustrating. Let’s just break down Friday night’s performance, it was dreadful. It was dreadful against a pretty average Warrington team that was missing key forwards.

The fact Warrington were missing their eight,10,11 and 12 and Leeds were virtually full strength in the forwards but were unable to compete is the biggest worry for me. I’ve consistently said this is the pack the coach had recruited and decided to go with and I’ve consistently said that this pack will mean we will lose plenty of games.

The lack of structure is so apparent and more so against teams that are clearly coached and structured. It’s also hampering our creative and exciting backs. Brodie Croft isn’t having 80-minute impacts on games, Matt Frawley is absolutely lost in games and Lachie Miller floats in and out and his impact is nowhere near the levels it should be. Ash Handley has to go 80 metres to have an impact on the game.

It’s frustrating and for me the coach needs to get a handle on it. He needs to understand what it is he is working with and change his system to play to what strengths we have.

IAIN SHARP

Warrington, a sort of St Helens if you bought them off Wish, turned up and handed Leeds a lesson last Friday night. Apart from the opening 15 minutes and a few flickers when the forwards decided to get stuck in during the second half, for the majority of the game Leeds were second best. Their defending up the middle was especially atrocious against a Wire side missing several first-choice players and who were, frankly, there for the taking.

There are several versions of rugby league rules in operation, in the NRL, Super League or for international matches. Friday saw the presentation of yet another version, the Aaron Moore version. In this edition, you can give scant regard to some rules, like offsides or forward passes and can blatantly ignore things like crusher tackles, whilst then penalising seemingly innocuous subsequent tackles. He wasn’t the reason Leeds lost, but we could do without too many ‘friends’ like him.

Warrington seem to have adapted to the arrival of Sam Burgess, living the dream using the ‘Tony Smith Self Improvement Course’ (£8.99 at all good bookshops) almost instantly and look far more organised whilst after two years of the current regime Leeds still at times seem to be stumbling around in the dark. Now we have ‘a week off to regroup’ … where have I heard that one before?

One last point, I’m always up for a bit of inter-fan banter/chanting to build up an atmosphere. I also don’t mind the colourful Anglo Saxon effin’ and jeffin’ that’s often used either. I’ve heard that sort of thing at just about every major

sporting occasion, rugby and otherwise and anyone thinking they won’t is painfully naive. But, there is an unwritten line that shouldn’t be crossed. Much has been made in the press recently about chants at association football,

making reference to Hillsborough, Munich and closer to home Istanbul and about getting it stamped out. Many moons ago, even Leeds RL fans had offensive chants about trawlers and, whilst affectionate, the physical attributes of a certain player of the era. The club called them out as unacceptable and they stopped, instantly. With a perennial lack of originality, the Warrington fans thought it would be ‘entertainment’ to sing about a notorious media personality, who to my knowledge, had absolutely no connection to Leeds RLFC whatsoever.

Maybe the RFL, after fining Castleford £40k for homophobic chanting back in 2010, should apply the same penalties for this particular song? I checked after the game, the Warrington club has made no reference to their fans or calling out this specific chant. By their silence, are they effectively condoning that chant? Why don’t they as a club call it out? If rugby league is the family sport, it projects itself to be, then maybe it is time they did.

BECKY OXLEY

Finally we got a rain-free match for the visit of Warrington. Evenly-matched in the table, it was never going to be an easy game. It would have been easy to pass comment from just watching the game live: there was lots of booing, comments about the ref and things that were let go, the passion was certainly there to be heard. I had to sit and rewatch the game on Sky to give a more reflective overview and in my opinion, we didn’t do as badly as maybe I would have first said.

We were scrappy in parts with dropped balls and the short kick-offs didn’t always go our way, but Warrington’s defence and comeback was better than ours on the night. The referee let the game flow as much as possible and he was pretty fair overall.

There were some tough tackles and we felt the loss of Ash Handley and Tom Holroyd. Sam Lisone was running the ball and we had the debut of Ned McCormack who is a star for the future I’m sure. There is room for improvement and any team will always say this. We, I’m sure, will grow more as a team and things will come together.

DAVID MUHL

Disappointed, frustrated, angry, saddened; these are just some of the feelings I’ve had after Friday night’s performance. I genuinely thought we were going in the right direction, but my hopes were dashed after a woeful display.

When I saw the team sheet, I thought we were in for a win. This was basically a first-choice team, but you can only describe the result as a drubbing. We were beaten in every area across the park and after the first 15 minutes we were never in it.

There were few positives to take out of this game, the first Leeds try was superb - a great kick from Matt Frawley and a brilliant catch by Harry Newman - but that proved to be a blip. Our defence, which has been great over the past few weeks, just fell apart, we conceded some soft tries and were dominated in the forwards.

We let George Williams have far too much room and he ran the show. I have, over the last few weeks praised, the referees, but Aaron Moore’s performance on Friday left a lot to be desired. Some of his decisions were appalling, however even if he’d had a great game I don’t think it would have affected the outcome. We were so far off the mark, it left me scratching my head asking where do we go from here?

There are lots of calls on social media for a change of coach. I think it’s too early for that, but I really think Rohan Smith needs to get some improvement in the results and quickly! We fell into all the bad things we were doing last year: unforced errors, silly penalties and poor kicking, even the consistent Rhyse Martin gave up his kicking duties.

We have a week off now and let’s hope this is put to good use. It’s time to come together as a team to work on areas to improve our game play. Huddersfield are next up and after their result against Hull FC they will be ready to come and play. It’s the start of the Women’s Super League as well so we will be having a double header against Huddersfield. Let’s get Headingley rocking and get behind both sides and let’s get marching on together.