"At least we've got the 2 points", seemed to be a fair and popular assessment of the game as Super League XI kicked off with a bit of whimper at Headingley.
The weather conditions did not help as both sides failed to complete an adequate number of sets early on and you just could not see the opening try being a length of the field job passing through 8 pairs of hands, it wasn’t. We were awarded a penalty, 10 metres out and 3 tackles later Kevin Sinfield managed to squeeze over, he duly converted, 6-0 to the Rhinos after 15 and we were off, weren’t we?

Not quite but another 15 minutes later it was 10-0 as Scott Donald scored his debut try powering over. Indeed he showed good strength later on, on a couple of occasions and looked better defensively than I had him down for. Five minutes later and it was 10-6 then just before the break Lee Smith got his first try of the season.


HT 14-6.


Leeds had the better of the early stages of the second half with Gareth Ellis almost getting on the score sheet on two occasions before Danny McGuire went over for the first of many on 55 after a cock up by Robbie Paul, 20-6 and it was game over or it should have been. On 60 minutes the Giants were incorrectly awarded a penalty try, their man had already crossed for the try but ref, Steve Ganson, gave the conversion in front of the posts at the same time incorrectly sin-binning Richard Mathers, that made the score 20-12 and nobody troubled the scorers after that.


FT 20-12


Verdict: Not a great performance on a poor pitch, the Rhinos looked slow on occasions but Tony Smith has already admitted that he has deliberately sent them into the season undercooked due to the length of the season after we tailed off last year.


Looking forward to Friday now at Wigan and an interesting confrontation with Calderwood and Lee Smith.