YEP rugby league writer Peter Smith gives his thoughts on Leeds Rhinos' 26-0 loss at Catalans Dragons.
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00:00 It's been a difficult evening for the Rhinos here in the south of France, beaten 26-0 by Catalan Dragons.
00:07 Catalan's by far the better team, won the front foot for most of the game, although it was tight, really, up until the last five minutes when Catalan scored two converted tries.
00:19 Leeds really looked like scoring, and now that's two trips to Berthiaume when they've failed at register a point, which is obviously disappointing for the thousands of fans who made the trip today.
00:31 Leeds couldn't have tried much harder in my opinion, they really put the effort in, but made a lot of mistakes.
00:39 Conceded nine penalties, which didn't help twice, penalised from the kick-off, which is obviously a pretty poor way to concede ground.
00:49 Both of those actually led to Catalan points, so those are things that Leeds need to work on, need to cut out of their game.
00:59 There were some positives, Jacksonfield made a mistake which led to the decisive try, but I thought apart from that, he had a very strong game.
01:06 And showed some really good signs, Ash Hanley, excellent, I thought, ran really hard, defended well, Louis Roberts had a real dig as well.
01:17 Leeds probably realistically were never going to win, coming here with the side they've got out.
01:23 A lot of inexperience in the team, missing some key players, but it's a bitter blow to take, a kneeling against a team that they beat at home earlier in the season.
01:36 Leeds have a free weekend next week when the Champions Group semi-finals will be played, and then they go to St Helens, so that's going to be another incredibly tough game.
01:46 They need some bodies back on the team sheets, if they don't get that then it could be another long and disappointing evening over at Teger Dulus Stadium.
01:55 There were some positives as I say from today in terms of the effort application, but you should expect that every week anyway, that should be a given.
02:03 In terms of performance, just need to cut out the errors and just be a bit smarter.
02:09 But obviously Leeds need some of their big guns back on attack, Brodie Croft really was missed today.
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