WATCH: ‘Lack of quality’ costs Leeds Rhinos in defeat to Castleford Tigers

The loss left Rhinos 10th in Betfred Super League, just two points clear of bottom club London Broncos who they play at the Magic Weekend in nine days’ time.

Agar said: “I saw lots of effort., some of it misdirected at times.

“I still look at us defensively and while I see some effort, we are just not defending for long enough periods.”

He added: “I don’t think our kicking game did us any favours - when we had an opportunity to build sokme pressure and put them under a bit of stress our kicking game was too off.

“When we had chances to keep them at their own end and get into the energy battle it just wasn’t of the required standard.”

Rhinos conceded five tries and Agar admitted “Defensively, we aren’t winning enough tackles and some of the tries were soft.”

In contrast, Cas coach Daryl Powell was delighted after his team ended a four-game losing run.

“It was pretty important,” he said. “We’d lost four games on the spin and some of those were pretty close and tough. It was two teams that really needed a win out there and thankfully we were good enough to get away with a win.”