Jukes: We lacked quality

Neil Jukes watched his Leigh side lose for a second time over Easter as Hull picked up a 24-10 victory on Monday.

After an encouraging start to the season, the Centurions have now lost five in a row.

Jukes said: “It was a 12-13 minute blip. I just thought they chipped away at us through that first half.  We were always in the game. It was probably the physical side on the edges.

“I thought we created enough chances, we just couldn’t get the ball down, whether that through pure strength or brawn I’m not sure. I just thought defensively I was disappointed with a couple of similar tries that they scored when they went to the long side.”

“The ruck was a big issue all game for us – we didn’t get it right and didn’t get the numbers right and they kind of walked over there. That’s a difficult one.

“There were loads of ticks in boxes for working hard. We’ve got to try and get tighter and cut out a lot of looseness in a lot of facets of our game, whether our kicking, whether that be in making our one-on-ones, whether that be on our completion rates. We need to get a little bit better across the board.”

“But certainly, I thought defensively – Fonua, Watts, there’s some big strong guys – but some of the younger guys poked their nose through and that’s not acceptable and is something we spoke about at half-time.”

“It’s been a tough four days, we’ve been in a game, not far off and I thought if we’d scored again on the back of that first try to get us within twelve, then momentum is a funny thing, but we had all the huff and puff in the world and I’m disappointed.

“I fancied us going into this weekend’s games – a lot of clubs are playing busted at the moment and we are probably at our peak, but we just lacked a bit of quality when we needed it.”