• 5 months ago
Leeds Rhinos coach Rohan Smith reflects on Leeds Rhinos' 32-4 defeat of Castleford Tigers.
Transcript
00:00 Yeah, obviously a very pleasing performance. We attacked the game from the start. I thought
00:05 we played with confidence from the kick-off and didn't give the other team a glimpse in
00:13 the contest from the scoreboard point of view. I thought we scored on that first set, was
00:19 it? Yeah, we went on with it. We were quite relentless with our work and made a difference.
00:26 In the last couple of weeks a few players have come back in the group, like Paul Momorowski
00:29 getting ahead of schedule there with his rehab. Coming back in the team made a real difference
00:33 to that right edge. I thought the kid on the outside of him was learning how to play wing
00:38 really well as well, Alfie. But it was a good team performance, I thought. A good team performance
00:42 from start to finish. We were a team. I thought we lacked a little bit of, maybe left a couple
00:47 of points out there, but that was a strong performance on a difficult week.
00:52 Defensively, I don't think you get cussed off at a sniff really down your end in that
00:56 first half. Thumbs were really pleased as well. Yeah, we won the position battle. We
01:00 attacked with our defence and our kick return for you was really strong. Then we were getting
01:05 some decent kick finishes in contests so we were winning that cycle. We didn't really
01:10 give them a look in the second half. We played some position in the second half but our defence
01:14 was really strong. The only try came from a shift after an obstruction on the opposite
01:19 field where every other time they'd tell you to go down. Brodie did one earlier in the
01:25 game but they mustn't have looked. They just checked the grounding. I thought we deserved
01:31 a zero today.
01:32 What does that do for the belief and confidence in the squad after a tough couple of weeks?
01:36 I don't think it does much for the belief. I think there's a very high level of belief
01:39 in the group and that's maybe led to some of the frustration or disappointment. Because
01:44 if you don't believe you can play at a high level, you shouldn't really be that disappointed
01:49 if you get beat by a strong team. This season we've been beaten by strong teams but we've
01:56 taken it to them and we've beaten them every game. Certainly for confidence and feel good
02:00 factor it does plenty for that because we executed some stuff that we've practised and
02:08 worked hard on as well as just generally ripped into the game on both sides of the ball. I
02:14 really like the temperament today where people weren't worried about a mistake. We just got
02:20 on with it. I think at other times we've maybe wallowed in it or carried the divots. We just
02:27 got on with it and played really good footy. That was an important day. We were representing
02:34 more than ourselves as well in Leeds Building Society passing over the jersey to Barnardo's
02:42 which is a great thing. Hearing those stories puts things in context as well. We also had
02:49 Mike Bates who's a great friend of the club speak to us yesterday about a few things and
02:53 seeing that in action today. He brought some friends of his as well from ThruDark. They
03:01 shared a few stories today and it was nice to action some of the stuff that we spoke

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