Leeds Rhinos coach Rohan Smith hails 'brave' win at Wigan Warriors, reflects on Zane Tetavano red card

Rhinos trailed 14-0, got back into the game with an interception try by Harry Newman and then had Zane Tetevano sent-off just before the interval.

Despite having been on the back foot for the opening 40 minutes and losing James Bentley to a head injury, Leeds dominated the second half to score five tries to one.

Smith admitted Rhinos “weren’t pleased with our whole performance”, but insisted: “It was brave, spirited, there’s a lot of belief in that dressing room even though we haven’t performed consistently within games as we’d like.”

He said: “The first half was clumsy, then the referee made a big decision. We never lost belief, then at half-time we regrouped a bit.

“Obviously the intercept before half-time helped things, that was a huge play and when the referee made that big call I thought we were still in it. It was going to take a lot, a lot of good effort and some good execution and maybe a few things to go our way.

“The things that went our way were on the back of good defence, connected defence and sometimes you can get an intercept or two or three.”

Newman repeated his feat with another long-range try, from a Wigan pass, midway through the second half, moments after the hosts had levelled the scores at 16-16.

Smith stressed it was an all-round team effort, but praised the way the centre picked Wigan’s pockets.

He said: “Harry has been very good with his defence particularly, he is a good reader of play and he trusts his instincts, which is great and he was able to execute it.

“He took his chances well, he’s rolling his sleeves up and chasing kicks hard and working hard in yardage. He is competing well, he is a terrific competitor.”

Leeds were under huge pressure for much of the first half, until Newman’s fame-changing score, but Wigan managed only two tries during that spell and Smith felt that was crucial.

“Particularly on that left edge we made a few really critical tackles,” he reflected. “It’s not meant to look pretty, it’s about keeping the ball off the grass over the line sometimes.

“The ability to make scrambling tackles really is the biggest determinant of a good defensive performance.

“Some people want to look at ruck control and line speed and whatnot; they are important, but regardless of what you execute there you still have to make those critical tackles near the tryline.

“We were disappointed with the one [Bevan] French scored from a scrum, we were in a good position to solve that, but aside from that there was a lot of excellent defence in the first half that kept the score close enough to be able to regroup at half-time and try and go about things in a different way in the second half.”

Bentley’s concussion rules him out of Saturday’s Betfred Challenge Cup rematch with Wigan and Tetevano could miss the tie through suspension.

Smith confirmed: “[Bentley] was fine by half-time, as far as he was feeling, but he wasn’t a chance to pass the hia [head injury assessment], based on how he went down. But he is feeling good, which is key.”

Tetevano’s challenge on Wigan half-back Harry Smith will be studied by the RFL’s match review panel on Monday. Smith left the field for a concussion check, but returned at the start of the second half.

Of the red card, Smith said: “I didn’t have too much time to spend analysing referee decisions because we’ve got to try to put a plan in place.

“We’ve already lost one edge back-rower in James Bentley and now we’re losing another one, but from the replays I saw, it was difficult to be conclusive of the point of contact.

“That would be my first thought and I’m not overly sure how late it was either. But everyone’s looking through a different lens.”

The Challenge Cup tie offers Wigan a rapid chance for revenge and Smith said recovery will be crucial to Rhinos’ hopes of a first victory in the competition since they lifted the trophy three years ago.

“We put a lot of energy into that game,” he admitted of the league clash. “But we have been doing a really good job at that, finding energy each week, regardless of the performance, good or bad.

“Next week we might have a chance of applying a gameplan. That was a bit of our footy identity coming out in the second half, with some of the tries and some of the way we played, but there wasn’t a lot of particular gameplan.

“Maybe we can take a bit out of that and work out where Wigan might have a weakness or two.”