Leeds deny Leigh maiden home win
Leeds spoilt the Centurions’ dreams of a first home Super League win in 12 years with a narrow 17-14 victory at the Leigh Sports Village.
After scoring in the Castleford match last week, Matty Dawson gave the Centurions an early lead against Leeds, taking Josh Drinkwater’s pass before crossing over inside five minutes.
A neat offload from Ben Reynolds put Mitch Brown in a few minutes a later to continue a solid start to the game by the Centurions. But without converting both tries they only had an 8-0 lead.
The Rhinos were back to within two after a converted try from Adam Cuthbertson.
Then Matt Parcell picked open the Leigh defence with relative ease before feeding Carl Ablett who put Ryan Hall in the corner with just under a quarter of an hour played.
Jimmy Keinhorst gave Brian McDermott’s side a six-point cushion over their opponents with seven minutes of the first half remaining.
Liam Sutcliffe wasted the chance to make it 16-8 by sending the kick into the stands.
Sutcliffe, who had found the target hard to come by with his boot, nailed a long-range drop goal on the half-time hooter to see the Rhinos lead take a 15-8 lead into the interval.
Dawson looked to have added to his early four-pointer five minutes into the second half after appearing to get on the end of Drinkwater’s grubber. But the try was later disallowed by the video referee.
Jamie Acton made it even harder for Leigh to find a way back into the match, making a silly intervention to prevent Leeds from making a quick restart and subsequently being sent to the sin bin in the 66th minute.
Sutcliffe successfully slotted another penalty between the sticks to push the Rhinos 17-8 ahead.
A great individual effort from Ben Crooks saw the Centurions score their first try for an hour, giving the home side some hope in the 68th minute.
Reynolds nailed the conversion to leave Leigh trailing by just three points.
Atelea Vea had a late chance to snatch a win but made a poor decision to go for the whitewash himself when there two Leigh players on his outside flank.
Leeds scrambled hard in defence to close out a tight win.
