Leeds Rhinos 32, Castleford Tigers 4: Rohan Smith's reaction

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