Leeds Rhinos coach Rohan Smith's 'promise' message to fans after loss at Hull FC, admits errors told

Hull had lost 13 of their previous 14 competitive games this year, including an 18-12 home reverse to Leeds at the end of April. They led 18-0 early in the second half - all their points coming in an eight-minute spell - and Rhinos never looked like pulling the game from the first, despite two late tries.

Chants of “sacked in the morning” and “get out of our club” were aimed at Smith from the away end in the second half and the coach was asked in his post-match press conference what he would say to Leeds’ travelling fans. “That game was filled with promise,” Smith responded.

“There’s a lot of talent and a lot of belief in the group, they are a very connected group. The message is, the boys will stick together, we’ll keep working hard, we’ll own our mistakes and make it the best week we can in prep’.”

The coach accepted Leeds’ seventh defeat in 14 Betfred Super League rounds was a “missed chance” and “two points lost”, but felt they were the better team in aspects of the game. “I thought we started really strongly and had forward momentum for most of the opening exchanges,” Smith said.

“Overall we lacked care with the ball and maybe being a little more clinical on a few occasions might have [brought] a few more points. I thought Hull scrambled exceptionally well to slow us down. I thought in both halves we had a bunch of forward momentum, but we didn’t capitalise on that well enough.

“When they had a few opportunities close to our line I thought we dealt with their shapes pretty well. We had a couple of moments where they got the ball down on the ground; overall I thought for the bulk of the game, defensively we were pretty comfortable.”

Errors have been an issue for Leeds all season and they let Hull off the hook several times with poor handling. Smith conceded: “It’s frustrating for everyone. Some of our best players had some poor moments, which compounds the errors.

“I think that’s the thing with mistakes, it’s trying not to compound them - making them back to back, making them at the wrong time. It’s not just the whole number generally that causes an issue, it’s the timing and how frequent they are.”

Smith denied his team were out-enthused, but reckoned they were “too eager” and lacked patience with the ball at times. “They [Hull] have had a lot more ball than us, but we’ve made a similar amount of metres, or maybe even a few more,” he said.

“I thought some of our line speed was tremendous, Jarrod O’Connor leading that middle-unit line speed. They played with high energy at times, for sure, but when we were rolling forward, we had the momentum. They certainly scrambled and saved a few tries, which turned out to be big moments.”

He added: “Hull are a stronger group than their ladder position suggests. They played with high energy. I thought we generated more opportunities than they did and the scoreboard doesn’t lie sometimes.”