Leeds Rhinos coach Richard Agar rues a tough day for the club

St Helens' Regan Grace (right) evades a tackle from Leeds Rhinos' Luke Briscoe to score his sides fifth try during the Betfred Super League match at Emerald Headingley Stadium, Leeds. PA Photo. Picture date: Sunday August 9, 2020. See PA story RUGBYL Leeds. Photo credit should read: Martin Rickett/PA Wire. RESTRICTIONS: Editorial use only. No commercial use. No false commercial association. No video emulation. No manipulation of images.

Leeds were top of the table at the start of Betfred Super League round eight, but failed to score for the first time in a home game since since 1992.

It was Leeds’ third-heaviest losing margin at Emerald Headingley in any competition, after a 58-2 defeat by Queensland in 1983 and 54-3 hammering at the hands of Bradford Northern in 1945.

“It was a really tough day,” Agar admitted.

St Helens' Zeb Taia (centre) is tackled by Leeds Rhinos' Rhyse Martin (left) and Callum McLelland during the Betfred Super League match at Emerald Headingley Stadium, Leeds. PA Photo. Picture date: Sunday August 9, 2020. See PA story RUGBYL Leeds. Photo credit should read: Martin Rickett/PA Wire. RESTRICTIONS: Editorial use only. No commercial use. No false commercial association. No video emulation. No manipulation of images.

“An important place to start is the way we turned the ball over early doors – we didn’t do that in the right manner, in a controlled way – and throw in some penalties and a couple of poor decisions with the ball.

“It was 24-0 at half-time and they had scored two close-range tries and a kick-chase try.

“They were soft tries. It probably sounds a bit silly, but I thought there was some pretty good effort at times, but it wasn’t effort we could sustain.”

Agar hailed Saints’ defence as “magnificent”, but was disappointed with the way his side ended the game, conceding four tries in the final 23 minutes.

James Webster and Richard Agar ar Rhinos training. Picture: Phil Daly.

He said: “We didn’t want to let our effort drop and I thought towards the back end of the game we got soft, really really soft.”

Saints have now won both their games since Super League’s return from coronavirus and Agar said they are “probably playing a little bit of a different game to everyone else in terms of the speed and skill they’ve got in the team and the power they have through the middle”.

Leeds were without four players from the previous week’s win over Huddersfield, but the coach refused to use injuries as an excuse.

“We had some strike power missing, a third of our cap unavailable to select, but I thought we had a team that could certainly do better than that scoreline,” he said.

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Thank you

Laura Collins