'Nearly impossible to win': Leeds Rhinos' Rhyse Martin on Castleford Tigers defeat and Kruise Leeming bombshell

The 14-8 loss came after back-to-back wins at St Helens and home to Wakefield Trinity and a third successive victory would have lifted Rhinos to third in the Betfred Super League table.

Rhinos led twice in the first-half and were ahead at the break, but Castleford were on the front foot for most of the second period and once they had gone ahead for the second time, Leeds never really threatened to pull the game from the bag.

Tigers went into the match second from bottom, low on confidence and without either a permanent head-coach or a win this year.

However, they raised their game from the off, helped by a steady succession of errors and penalties conceded by the visitors and Martin accepted Rhinos weren’t good enough.

“It is disappointing,” he admitted. “Cas had a point to prove and maybe we were a bit complacent.

“They have been through a bit in the last couple of weeks and I think we have to take it as a lesson, not rest on our laurels and keep building individually and as a team.

“We have to try and win every week, not put these performances in back-to-back. We have got to come out next week and try to put a strong performance in.”

Looking at what went wrong, Martin reflected: “We just couldn’t hold the ball, couldn’t do anything in that second-half.

“They had a lot of energy and put the pressure on us. We were defending our goal line for the majority of that second-half and when you’re doing that and then not completing your sets, it’s nearly impossible to win a game.”

The goal-kicking second-rower insisted it wasn’t quite all doom and gloom. He added: “I thought we did bits in that game well.

“We stuck together throughout the whole 80 minutes, but we needed to be better with completing.”

Having posed an attacking threat before the break, when they built an 8-6 lead, Leeds barely created a chance in the final 40 minutes.

They restricted Tigers to just two touchdowns, both scored by winger Bureta Faraimo and Martin said: “We are confident defensively.

“They scored both their tries out wide and got their points by penalties, but we were comfortable defensively, we just did too much of it.”

In contrast to the previous two games, Leeds opted to take Castleford on in the middle of the field, rarely getting the ball wide to their three-quarters.

“It was just one of those nights,” Martin stated. “I think if we’d held the ball, that would be a lot of energy Cas were expending defensively.

“They just kept turning up and putting pressure on us and that’s why the mistakes were coming.

“I felt if we were to complete they wouldn’t be able to hold on to that defensive energy and I felt we would probably have come away with a win in the end.

“But we couldn’t hold the ball, couldn’t complete or build pressure and make them lose that energy.”

The match was overshadowed, from Rhinos’ point of view, by news former captain Kruise Leeming is unsettled and has requested a move.

That broke before kick-off and was confirmed by coach Rohan Smith in his post-match press conference, but Martin stressed it had no bearing on the way Leeds played.

He said: “I haven’t heard anything about it. That has all been kept pretty quiet between Kruise’s management and the club. I think as a group we just need to stick together and try and get to where we were last year.”

Meanwhile, stand-off Blake Austin will be available for next Saturday’s home clash with Catalans Dragons after passing a head injury assessment during the game at the Jungle.

He was replaced for a spell in the second-half and coach Smith said: “I asked him and he said he felt fine.

“It was one of those where he may have got a bump and had to be checked, go through the process as we should. But he did get up and keep playing and didn’t stop the game, so credit to him for that.”

Explaining his decision to leave forward Sam Walters out of Rhinos’ 17, Smith added: “We have got a fairly healthy middle-unit at the moment and Cameron Smith is playing such big minutes at 13.

“We needed to carry an outside-back on the bench this week. It was unfortunate for Sam who has done a good, solid job when called upon.”