Defeat puts perspective on play-offs for hurting Leeds stars

Whereas last year Leeds failed to perform and were embarrassingly out-played by Warrington Wolves, they delivered a far richer performance against Wigan Warriors on Saturday and were unfortunate to lose 28-18.

Jones-Buchanan, the rugged second-row who hopes to make his England debut in the Four Nations, was central to their improved effort.

“It’s slightly different,” he said, in relation to the emotions as the West Yorkshire club endured a second successive Wembley defeat.

“We can probably come away thinking we performed slightly better and in those last 10 minutes the game really could have gone either way but it doesn’t make you feel any better.

“Winning and losing is like digital information; what goes on in between is pretty irrelevant really.

“I think the lads can take a lot of positives in the fact we nearly beat Wigan in a final and there’s no reason why we can’t do something like that again in the play-offs.”

Leeds overcame a 16-0 deficit to trail just 16-14 at one stage, Jones-Buchanan’s sweeping break helping start the fightback as he set up position for Ryan Hall’s opening try.

“Wigan blow teams away,” he said. “We knew we’d have to weather some sort of storm and most teams fail to react to that but we did and made a game out of it.

“It was a typical final. We knew they’d come out firing with quick tries – that’s what they do.

“But we came in at half-time with some momentum and the key was to go out and continue that.

“I think we did to be fair. I don’t think anyone really dominated that second half and finals come down to one per centers.

“Wigan got there’s in the end and they’ve been great all year so credit to them; they’re a very good side.”

However, the Cherry and Whites did score two controversial second-half tries to help pull away when Leeds got close to overhauling them.

“When you look at some of their tries I think (Lee) Mossop was playing quarter-back the way he gave it (forward) to (Jeff) Lima,” added Jones-Buchanan.

“Then a Wigan player knocked the ball into touch but they got possession and scored off the back of it.

“Some of the things out of our control all this season could go on Live at the Apollo. It’s been that bad.

“But we just decided to keep it in our bubble and just control what we can control. It’s worked for us over the last two months as well and we nearly got a try with the Ben Jones-Bishop’s chance at the end. We know it could have gone either way.”

The resilient Jones-Buchanan, who has won four Super League titles with his hometown club, has now lost three Challenge Cup finals and is yet to lift the trophy.

He always maintains what does not kill him makes him stronger but said: “I’m 30 now.

“When you get to a certain age you start thinking it might start killing me!

“It’s getting harder, not getting any easier.

“But we’ve got a lot of young lads like Kallum (Watkins) and Bish’ with Chris Clarkson too who are making this team stronger.

“I’m sure that will continue and some of our older guys can continue kicking on for a few more years so there’s still a chance yet for another Challenge Cup one day.”

The Leeds squad will now immediately turn their attentions to Friday’s Super League game with Wakefield Trinity Wildcats and their quest to finish the regular season positively in readiness for the play-offs.

“The first thing I was thinking about – and I know the players were too – was what’s next?” added Jones-Buchanan.

“That (Wembley) has gone now, it’s out of the window.

“We can take a lot of positives that we did compete with Wigan and there’s no reason why we can’t compete with anyone; they’re the top team in the league and we did that to them.

“There’s no reason why we can’t do that in the play-offs; we’ll just aim for the Grand Final now and hopefully we’ll win it.”

Carl Ablett scored a try on 59 minutes to leave Rhinos trailing just 16-14 before Lima’s outlandish second sadly halted their progress.

“I’d swap that try now for a victory,” said Ablett.

“I don’t know if it hurts a little bit more when you get so close to it and to lose it like that having come back from where we were – 16-0 down and staring down the barrel of a defeat.”

Ablett was one of the players who tried asking referee Phil Bentham to go to the screen to see the error which led to Thomas Leuluai’s clinching try three minutes from time after Ryan Hall’s second had got them near once more.

“He wouldn’t say anything,” he said. “Obviously we thought the ball had come off their lad into touch – it seemed to on video looking at the screens – but he made the decision and there wasn’t much we could do with that

“It was frustrating on the field at the time.

“We feel if we’d had the ball we could have troubled them and maybe got the try ourselves (to win) but he just refused.”