WATCH - Leeds Rhinos: Errors costs us dearly against Hull FC, admits Richard Agar

After trailing 12-0 early on and 20-6 in the second half, Rhinos hit back to lead by four points with 12 minutes left – only to immediately concede the match-winning try after prop Nathaniel Peteru dropped the restart.

Rhinos remain 10th in Betfred Super League, but now only points difference separates them from bottom club London Broncos who beat a second-string St Helens side today.

Agar felt there were positive signs, but insisted: Rhinos made too many errors to snatch the points.

“It was frustrating,” he admitted.

“It was obviously very close, but I think the overriding message is we did enough things wrong in that game not to get the victory.”

Agar described Rhinos’ failure to deal with the kick off after they had gone ahead for the only time as a major turning point. He said: “When you are playing one of the top teams in the comp’ and there’s 10 minutes left on the clock you have to deal with stuff like that.”

Peteru was recalled to the side after two months on the sidelines with a fractured cheekbone.

“We will have a chat this week,” Agar added.

“He has been out for a while, but we have got to nail those plays.”

Hull scored two converted tries in the opening quarter, but Leeds halved the deficit going into half-time.

“We can be really disappointed with what we tossed up in that first 20,” Agar said.

“Our middles didn’t really get a grip of anything that was coming through them and that was compounded with some poor errors, but I did think we found some energy after that when we got a bit of the ball.

“To come in six points down, completing around 65 per cent, showed a pretty determined effort.

“We didn’t see much field position in the second half, but we did show good energy with the ball and caused them some problems. To get in front we scored a couple of really good tries and it was all on, but when you look back over the course of 80 minutes we simply did too many things wrong that were in our control.”

Leeds have almost two weeks to lick their wounds before a four-pointer at another side in the relegation scrap, Huddersfield Giants, on August 2. Agar said: “We have got a disappointed and dejected changing room, but still a very, very determined one.

“We know if we can replicate some strong efforts like that – I thought the effort was much better than we turned out last week – and we can brush up on a couple of areas we will be fine.

“I always thought this was going to be one of our most difficult challenges on the run in and it proved to be – and we weren’t far away.

“Our effort was good, but we are disappointed we didn’t get the two points and we’ve got to be very aware of the areas where we feel we let ourselves down.”

Recent signing Rhyse Martin was one positive, the Papua New Guinea international landing all his four kicks, three from wide out.

“The ones he nailed were magnificent,” Agar noted.

“He is a very determined attacking player and made some good breaks and half-breaks.

“I think once he finds his feet in this team and in this competition you will see a very, very good player.

“We had some good players, but I also thought we had some who were inconsistent within that 80 minutes.”