Leeds Rhinos: We must stop giving the ball away, warns Konrad Hurrell

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Rhinos’ two-game winning run was brutally ended by a Saints team without seven first-choice players ahead of next weekend’s Coral Challenge Cup final against Warrington Wolves.

Leeds led 10-6 for a brief spell in the first half, but were blown apart in the second and Hurrell admitted: “It was very disappointing.”

He said: “We have been doing well the last couple of weeks, but it was like a reality check.

“You have to stick to a game plan and you can’t afford to give the ball to a great team like that.

“We over-played and we were chasing points. I don’t know why we did that, but if you give them too much ball they will score.”

After they had run in 92 points – and conceded only eight – in their previous two games, at times early on against Saints Rhinos seemed to be playing with too much confidence.

They made a series of errors in the first half though offloads and unnecessary passes and two mistakes soon after the interval allowed Saints to take a grip on the game they never looked like releasing.

“That’s pretty much the way we play,” Hurrell said of Rhinos’ attacking approach.

“The second phase is what we are good at, but the ball went to ground a bit in the first half and at half-time we got told to just keep hold of the ball a bit, stick to the game plan and still play a bit of footy, but not too much.

“I guess in the second half we went out and did the opposite.”

Saints scored 30 unanswered points either side of half-time, finishing with six tries to Leeds’ four.

Rhinos’ errors meant they had to do too much defending before the break and that took its toll afterwards, Hurrell felt.

He said: “We did a lot of defence in the first half, then come the second half we gave them a bit of ball in the first 10 minutes and that fatigued us a bit.”

Rhinos remain eighth in Betfred Super League, but face a nervous wait to see how many of the teams below them close the gap.

Bottom side London Broncos are away to Catalans Dragons today and tomorrow ninth-placed Wakefield Trinity visit Hull KR, who are 11th and Huddersfield Giants, in 10th, play host to Castleford Tigers.

Rhinos are two points ahead of Wakefield, Huddersfield and Hull KR and four clear of London who they visit for their next match on Sunday, September 1.

Super League takes a break next weekend, for the Challenge Cup final and Hurrell said: “That’s a good thing for us, just to go away and not think about the game and enjoy a bit of down time.

“It has been a tough year for us and we haven’t had much time off. We will get a couple of days off, not a full week and it’ll be good to enjoy a bit of life and a bit of family time and then come back and we’ll have a bit of time to work on what we need to work on.”

One positive from the game two days ago was Ash Handley’s brace of tries, both from passes by Hurrell.

That took him to 21 for the season, moving him level with Super League’s leading try scorer Niall Evalds of Salford Red Devils. “He is a great kid,” Hurrell said of his left-side partner.

“He has got a lot of talent and he still wants to work on the little things. He never thinks he is too good to work on stuff.

“It is easy for me to give him the ball and he will do his job.”