Leeds Rhinos fans slam Challenge Cup performance v St Helens, fear for Castleford Tigers derby

Rhinos’ 20-6 Betfred Challenge Cup defeat by St Helens - a week after losing to the same opponents in Super League - ended their Wembley hopes and left the YEP’s fans’ panel wondering where the season goes from here. It is early days, but most of our jury were bitterly disappointed with the team’s performance and aren’t confident of an improvement at Castleford Tigers this week.

IAIN SHARP

Like the philosopher George Berkeley suggested about falling trees making sounds, if you didn’t turn up to see Leeds get beaten by St Helens, did it really happen?

Sadly, those watching at home still had to guess some of the time, as the BBC camera work cut away to random crowd shots at the vital moment. I guess with all their rugby union experience, tries came as a novelty.

There was a disappointing decline in those attending on Friday compared to the previous week, which suggests there is something wrong with the cup offering. Personally, I’d like to see Super League teams enter at the last 32 stage, perhaps at the expense of the detested loop fixtures, with a good chance of drawing lower league opposition.

To even it up for them, I’d like to see seeding, with Super League teams always playing lower league teams away from home up to the quarter-final. Finally, I’d like to see better integration with the 1895 Cup, with lower league sides eliminated from the Challenge Cup’s later rounds effectively having byes to the later rounds of the 1895 Cup, in the same way that football teams knocked out of the Champions League revert back to the Europa League.

Next up is Castleford away on Maundy Thursday evening. Cas have lost all five of their league games, but we all know what that means when a disjointed Leeds are in town.

DAVID MUHL

For the second week in a row we suffered a three tries to one defeat to Saints. In appalling weather, it was a surprise either team could play any rugby at all so it’s a credit to both teams that they provided such good entertainment.

If the last two weeks have proved anything it’s that there is a very fine line between winning and losing. Leeds didn’t play badly at all. One of Saints’ tries came from the most forward of forward passes, the second from what appeared to be a knock on and the third from an uncharacteristic error by Mik Oledzki.

I don’t think in the whole 80 minutes we got a set restart, despite Saints, again, exploiting the holding down and messing at the play-the-ball to its limit. The clamp down on playing the ball with the foot seems to have gone out of the window, Saints regularly just rolling the ball between the legs.

The team selection surprised me with Rhyse Martin starting at centre again and no place in the team for Mickael Goudemand. I understand the need to rest Luis Roberts, but I think there must have been other options.

We are only six games into the season and the team is improving all the time; two games against the team that are obviously the best in the competition has been a marker for us, but if we can pick ourselves up after these two losses and continue improving then I’m sure we’re in for a good season where we will win more than we lose, finish in the top six and - who knows - maybe a trip to the Grand Final in October. It’s on to Castleford this week and a chance to put on a decent performance against our local rivals who haven’t had the greatest start this year.

BECKY OXLEY

St Helens were our opponents, once again, for the sixth round of the Challenge Cup. For me, this tournament has lost a lot through the years.

Because of the format, the time it is spread over and other reasons, it doesn’t engage me like it did when I first started to support Leeds 30-odd years ago. I think the rain is becoming a regular part of Rhinos nights and Friday was no different. Our effort this week, I think, was our worst this year; we didn’t have any game plan and it was very scrappy. The only highlight was Harry Newman’s 90-metre sprint to score a cracker of a try in front of the sticks.

I generally try to remain optimistic, but even I admit this performance wasn’t great. Calls for Rohan Smith to be sacked are all over social media. I don’t think this is the cure, but we definitely need to come together as a team and work out the things we need to improve. We have plenty to give and the team needs that bit more time to gel together. As they say “Rome wasn’t built in a day”.

GAVIN MILLER

I honestly think Leeds are either on the verge of building a successful team or on the precipice of more mediocrity. It’s so hard to call with the form so far this season.

They are either sublime or ridiculous and so far the latter has by far overridden the former. If you want to break it down just based on last week’s performance against St Helens, Leeds are miles off and the coach has some work to do and some questions to answer. Other than Harry Newman’s interception, Leeds just did not look like scoring in 80 minutes and Rohan Smith’s decision to play with only 16 men, similar to the the week before against St Helens, seems very strange with hindsight.

Lack of overall structure and apparent coaching mean this side will lose plenty of games without showing any sign of improvement. They will win some games, but until the coach gets a grip on what he wants to do with this team, those wins will do little to inspire confidence in his ability to really turn Leeds into a team with trophy-winning aspirations.

I guess what I’m trying to say is there is massive improvements needed from this group and from this coach

TOM GOLDSWORTHY

For the second week in a row, Rhinos fans were left bitterly disappointed after a loss to St Helens, only this time our chances of a trip to Wembley disappeared with it.

I do not mind losing to a better team, there’s no question about that. However, what does infuriate me is the lack of effort, discipline and quality from the boys on Friday night.

The amount of stupid penalties given away or passes not finding their target should not be happening at any professional rugby league club, let alone one that is supposed to be among the best. Without the Harry Newman interception, we would not have scored on Friday night, which should be ringing alarm bells for Rohan Smith.

There needs to be a second option for when our off the cuff style of play does not work. When it works, we look fantastic and unstoppable. However when the opposition has figured out how to defend it, we look clueless.

It makes you wonder what they spend all week working on because we had nothing on Friday night. I appreciate Saints are a good team, but with the quality we have in our side we should be threatening more.

I also want to question whether Matt Frawley was under strict instruction from the powers that be to kick down the throat of their best player every single time or whether he thought that was the best option. I hope it is the first one as it would be worrying that our starting number seven chose this option time and time again, meaning we were on the back foot from the off in every set with the easy metres made.

Looking ahead to our trip to Castleford, I have that gut feeling we will lose our third game in a row. The Tigers are always fired up for the game and in front of a big home crowd, I can see them picking up their first win of the season. I really hope I am wrong but I have seen this script before unfortunately.