There was a moment here, with over half an hour remaining, which perhaps summed up the current plight Leeds Rhinos find themselves in. At that stage, the hosts trailed by only eight points and a try would have brought them back into a contention against a St Helens side who certainly weren’t at their exhilarating best. A penalty deep in Saints territory offered them a prime opportunity to attack but instead of holding their nerve, Leeds panicked, shifted the ball wide on the first tackle and were bundled into touch.
That is the hallmark of a side who are low on confidence, and a quarter of the way through the regular season, in real trouble at the bottom. On the night of James Roby’s 500th St Helens appearance – only the fourth man in the club’s history to reach that milestone – the 36-year-old will have not had many more straightforward nights at the office than this, as the reigning champions inflicted a sixth defeat in seven league games on the Rhinos in 2022 without really getting out of second gear.
Leeds’ most optimistic supporters will point to a marked improvement in effort and endeavour as a positive to carry forward but really, that is the least anyone should expect from a side that has expectations of competing for trophies. Yes, they certainly gave their all here but the harsh reality is that they were brutally shown up on their own pitch by a side some way from their best. This latest result will have done little to encourage potential successors to Richard Agar that this job is right for them.
The man in interim charge, the legendary Leeds forward Jamie Jones-Buchanan, remained upbeat post-match. “It’s a tough result,” he said. “I was desperate for a performance because some of the lads have looked dejected and while I’ll preface this by saying losing 26-0 at home is never good enough for Leeds Rhinos, some of the building blocks we wanted to put in place were there.” Whether Leeds fans share that sentiment is certainly up for debate, though.
The signs looked ominous when the former Leeds centre, Konrad Hurrell, opened the scoring for the Saints within five minutes here. That lead was extended when Tommy Makinson crossed midway through the first half but as half-time approached, the hosts began to put significant pressure on the Saints. A litany of opportunities either side of half-time followed but a combination of resolute St Helens defending and lacklustre attack from the hosts kept them scoreless.
As Leeds became more and more desperate to break down the Saints, a frantic pass from Liam Sutcliffe was plucked from mid-air by Makinson on the hour mark. It swung the momentum in the visitors’ favour and from there, they never looked like conceding, let alone losing. “I thought that was a good high intensity game but you knew we weren’t going to be broken,” their coach, Kristian Woolf, said. “I liked everything about us.”
Makinson’s try and Mark Percival’s conversion made it 14-0 and three minutes later, the Saints decisively put the game to bed when a break down the left by Jon Bennison was finished by Lewis Dodd. Any intensity in Leeds’ play was ruthlessly eliminated in a matter of minutes, perhaps best underlining the gulf in quality at present between the two most successful sides in the modern era. It is almost certain these teams have different priorities looking ahead for the remainder of the season.
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Roby’s 500th game was everything we have come to expect from the hooker, and it was perhaps fitting he and the Saints were victorious here. The final moments saw Jonny Lomax cross for a solo try his performance merited and the only question left was whether Leeds could avoid the ignominy of being nilled. The boos from sections of the home support at full-time here delivered a somewhat unsurprising answer to that question.
