Leeds Rhinos talking points: Rohan Smith's injury woes, Corey Johnson steps up, video ref change needed

It was one of the gutsiest performances from a Leeds team in Betfred Super League, but not only did they come away without the points, they also lost three key players to what could belong-term injuries. Here’s five talking points.

1: Usually in sport, you get what you deserve. Leeds’ 13-12 loss to Saints was an exception to that rule.

Rhinos deserved at least a point, but Super League’s pointless (pun intended) extra-time law meant they finished empty-handed after 89 minutes and 28 seconds of brutal action.

There is nothing wrong with draws in sport and for effort alone, Leeds merited one - as did Hull KR against Wigan Warriors the previous day.

Instead, a team which had been reduced to 14 available players for almost 50 minutes had to go through almost another 10, with some of their troops on one leg and others running on fumes. So much for player welfare.

Unfortunately for Leeds, they didn’t have a drop goal specialist on the field. Where was Brad Dwyer when they needed him?

Sudden-death often becomes a succession of failed one-point attempts, the drop goal being, generally, a lost skill in rugby league. It’s obviously exciting, but unnecessary.

2: It seems Leeds will have to dig deep into their squad for Saturday’s Magic Weekend derby against Castleford Tigers in Newcastle.

First-choice halves Blake Austin and Aidan Sezer are now both on the casualty list and Morgan Gannon, who started the past two games at stand-off, is also set to miss out, along with the luckless Harry Newman.

Wing David Fusitu’a and prop Sam Lisone remain sidelined and there are doubts over second-row James Bentley and yet another half, Jack Sinfield. That’s on top of players who were walking wounded at the end of the Saints match.

The lack of play-makers is the biggest concern and Leeds could potentially have full-back Richie Myler and hooker Corey Johnson in the halves, as was the case for much of the Saints game.

Maybe Rhinos should look at the loan market, there’s an experienced half not playing at Wakefield Trinity who could use the game time.

3: It was smart of St Helens to get Sione Mata’utia sin-binned in extra-time, thus nullifying Leeds’ extra-man disadvantage.

James McDonnell was the second Rhinos player sent off in by referee Liam Moore in successive Super League games and Leeds often perform better when a man down.

McDonnell has been charged with grade D punching and suspended for two games, though what happened was not clear on Sky TV’s live footage.

However, the shemozzle was sparked by Saints’ Jonny Lomax taunting Rhinos forward Sam Walters following an error. That sort of thing causes more bother than almost anything else in the game.

If, for example, rubbing an opponent’s head after a mistake was an automatic sin-bin offence, that would stamp it out. Either that or let the ‘rubbee’ have a free dig back.

A penalty to Leeds for that original action could have been decisive, though Saints would claim the outcome was justice from an incident in the teams’ previous meeting, which Rhinos won by a point.

4: One positive from Rhinos’ spate of injuries in the Saints match was the extra game time handed to substitute Johnson.

He has been in and out of the side this year, usually getting 20 minutes or so to give hooker Jarrod O’Connor a breather.

He came on and, playing out of position in the halves, looked sharp, going close to making a breakthrough on a couple of occasions.

The ex-England academy international is an exciting prospect, but hooker is an area, where Leeds have a wealth of young talent. Watch out also for Bailey Aldridge and Mason Corbett in the lower grades.

5: Rhinos had two potential tries ruled out after referee Moore handed the decision to his video assistant Marcus Griffiths.

The first, to Tom Holroyd, went up as ‘no try’ and Griffiths agreed. In the second instance, the video official decided there was compelling evidence to overturn Moore’s initial thoughts and Justin Sangare was denied, the ruling being he had knocked the ball into Saints defender Agnatius Paasi’s hand before gathering cleanly to touch down.

Rhinos coach Rohan Smith felt both decisions were correct, but it’s not clear how Griffiths could be so certain with Sangare’s touchdown.

In any case, it’s a poor system. Ideally, the sport should just accept the ref’s decision and get on with things (as is the case in non-televised games) or allow him to ask for help without having to make a guess first.