Jukes slams “awful” Leigh performance

Leigh boss Neil Jukes hit out at his players after they crashed 36-10 at Widnes on Thursday.

The result sent the Centurions to the bottom of the Super League standings and Jukes was unhappy with his players’ performance, particularly before the break.

“It was an awful first half – I still can’t get my head around it,” said Jukes. “We had a tough week and got some good talk going so we were confident. We even spoke about this as being a cup final.

“We felt good, we trained well – everything was good but after the first set it was gone. Maybe everyone thought we were in a good place when nobody was in a good place.

“It’s a bad as I’ve seen. It was disappointing for a game of this magnitude. We gave them too many points. I would have taken 14-0 at half-time and then we spill the ball and they score on the last play to make it 20-0.

“They did the same on 80 minutes. We have some things to fix up. They dominated everything and we were chasing the game. It will be tough. We are fighting, irrespective of what competition we end up in.

“We took a lot from the Wigan game but maybe too much. We will address what’s gone on here. That first 40 minutes was as poor as it’s been this year. We will look at the video and see where we go from here.”