Kruise Leeming’s View From The Pitch: Why Leeds Rhinos fans deserve more

We do need a win but we needed a win in round one and round two and every time we set foot on the field.

We aren’t putting anything extra on this one but we are working hard behind the scenes and everyone is hurting from the performance at Wigan last week.

If you are going to lose, you want to do it like we did against Warrington, with all guns blazing.

The Wigan one was more disappointing because we know we didn’t do ourselves justice.

It did not reflect what went on in the week leading up to it; we are working hard in training and, hopefully, it all comes together on Thursday.

It will do at some point but, sometimes, it takes a while.

One of the disappointing things about last week was the way we fell away after their first try, having been right in the game up until then.

We did a lot of attacking but, credit to Wigan, they repelled us and defended well and hung on and, for them to then come down our end and score, it knocked the wind out of our sails a little bit.

They got another one just before half-time and began to get a roll on and we struggled to stop it.

That’s one thing about rugby league; when a team gets a roll on it is really hard to stop it.

Momentum is massive in our sport; it’s not like football where you can go and score goals from wherever, in rugby league, if you keep picking the ball up on your own goalline, unless there’s a penalty or a freak breakaway try, you struggle to get out of that.

Wigan played really well; they were everything we knew they were going to be,

They were tough, defended really well and stuck to their gameplans.

When things are going well, you do that; when things start to go wrong you, tend to drift away from that a bit and it usually makes things worse.

It was disappointing for the away fans and for us as well, the way we lost and some of the tries we conceded.

You always try to take positives out of any game and, for me, one of them last week was the way Liam Tindall came into the team and did a really good job.

He was massively deserving of his shot.

Sometimes, when people get injured, it opens doors for others but he had been knocking on the door anyway and, if we didn’t have such good wingers, he’d be a regular in the team by now.

I think, at most other clubs, he would have played a lot more Super League than he has done but we have got such a good backline, he has found himself fighting for a place. He trained immensely hard throughout pre-season and, if you bide your time and put the work in, eventually you’ll get that shot.

The thing then is to take it and he did that.

I thought he was brilliant for us and it is great to know he can come into the team and not look out of place.

Unfortunately, we keep getting injuries which seems to have been our story for the past couple of years.

It’s not good having any injuries but it’s one of those things I don’t know if we can do much about.

I am not sure if it is bad luck or whatever else but it’s just one of those things.

Teams will get injuries and the last 12 months seem to have been fraught with them.

When we get our best team out there, we are tough to beat but it’s just getting everyone on the field on a consistent basis that has been a problem for us.

Finally, I mentioned the fans earlier and I’d like to thank everyone who made the trek to Wigan in such bad conditions.

They were fantastic, singing all the way through and even after the game had ended.

We’re sorry we couldn’t give you the sort of performance and result you deserved.

The fans are the constant of Leeds Rhinos, they never let us down and we will be doing everything we possibly can to repay them.

That is our job, they are upholding their side of the bargain and we will give it everything we’ve got tomorrow to fulfil ours and give them something good to cheer about.