Leeds Rhinos coach makes 'not good enough' admission, reveals Matty Russell injury news after St Helens loss

After taking an early lead, Rhinos conceded seven tries to an injury-hit Saints outfit and Smith admitted: “Overall it wasn’t the standard.” He said: “We attacked the game to start with and we were in some control in a hard-fought first 20-30 minutes.

"In the first half our application and effort was good; execution was a bit off. “Then in the second half we got off to a really bad start with some errors and they put on some good plays back to back which made the scoreboard out of our favour. I was really disappointed with the way we lost our connection defensively. People were doing some things on their own and it made things worse, not better.”

Both Saints’ first half tries followed errors by Leeds and that pattern continued after the break. Smith accepted: “Some of them are totally in our control. There’s always going to be errors in a game, forced by collisions or difficult situations, but several of them were just personal attention to taking care of it. We just made too many back to back errors, which has been an issue for us.”

Rhinos led 6-0 early on, but a pass by Matt Frawley on the first tackle near the visitors’ line let Saints back into the match. “There’s big moments in big games,” Smith reflected. “You have to take more of those moments than you don’t.

“That was a big moment, but there was plenty of big moments. Fighting back to make it 24-10 there’s still some chance to get close, but we just weren’t good enough.”

Smith struggled to find anything upbeat to say about his side’s sixth defeat in 12 Betfred Super League rounds. “There were positive parts of the game, but the outcome and overall performance - we have got to start again, you don;t take anything out of that, really, other than a good kick in the backside.”

To add to Rhinos’ woes, on-loan Warrington Wolves winger Matty Russell lasted 29 minutes of his debut before failing a head injury assessment. Smith said he also suffered a knee problem and added: “He seems okay now, but it’s another outside-back we’ve lost in the first half of a game. It has been a conveyor belt there.”

The concussion means Russell will automatically miss next Saturday’s derby against Castleford Tigers. He joins fellow outside-backs David Fusitu’a, Paul Momirovski, Max Simpson, Riley Lumb, Jack Smith and Alfie Edgell on the casualty list.