Leeds Rhinos 8 Warrington Wolves 34 reaction: pair taken to hospital as Rohan Smith admits 'not good enough'
Two Leeds Rhinos players needed hospital treatment after Friday night’s painful 34-8 home defeat by Warrington Wolves.
Coach Rohan Smith admitted his side “weren’t good enough” over the course of 80 disappointing minutes and injuries to prop Tom Holroyd and winger Ash Handley added to Rhinos’ distress. The key pair were hurt in the first half and Smith revealed: “They have both gone to hospital to get checked. Tom has been feeling unwell after failing a head injury assessment and Ash has got a possible cracked rib. I don’t know if that was a turning point, but we certainly had to dig deep.”
Leeds led 4-0 early on, following a try by Harry Newman, but were 16-4 behind at the break. They pulled four points back soon afterwards, but a chance to get closer to the visitors was missed when Paul Momirovski had a touchdown ruled out on video evidence.
Though that was a key moment, Smith had no complaints over the result. He admitted: “We weren’t good enough for long enough in most parts of the game. At stages we looked like we were clawing it back in the second half and the scoreboard was closer to getting back on track, but we weren’t good enough with possession, in the first half in particular, to put a bit of fatigue into the other team.
“They had very good players playing on the front foot which made it hard to claw it back. Losing a few players with injuries was part of it as well, but overall we weren’t able to defend out goalline as well as we have in other games. Part of that was the position we put ourselves in. The scoreline didn’t reflect the battle it was, but it is a pretty harsh lesson as well.”