Featherstone Rovers 6 Leeds Rhinos 62: Rhinos get into top gear to finally expose the big gulf

At the start of the year bookmakers would have offered very long odds on Leeds and Featherstone meeting in the Qualifiers.

The teams are both where they deserve to be, after contrasting seasons, but they remain poles apart on the field.

After sitting bottom of Super League for much of the campaign, last year’s champions have finally started to show what they are capable of and the win at Post Office Road was their sixth in seven matches since the middle of June.

Featherstone won their last three in the Championship, all against teams above them on the table, to claim fourth spot and the final place in the middle-eights and they competed well for 40 minutes before class told.

The visitors led only 18-6 at half-time, but once they stepped up a gear Featherstone’s defence, the best in the Championship, could not cope. Leeds, who were close to full-strength, but lost Brett Delaney due to a suspected dislocated kneecap, scored eight of their 11 tries after half-time in a spree of 44 unanswered points. Having finished the regular season as Super League’s lowest scorers, it was the first time since the 50-0 Challenge Cup rout of Hull KR a year ago they had totalled more than 34 in a game.

Tougher tests lie ahead, but if they continue their recent improvement Leeds will comfortably secure a place in the Qualifiers’ top-three and a return to Super League next year. This was the first time they had played below the elite level of the game since 1903 and their superiority was not evident until the second half as Featherstone matched them for spirit and effort.

Rovers’ lone try came on 29 minutes, after Misi Taulapapa, impressive in the centres, intercepted Brett Ferres’s pass. Luke Cooper was in support and after his pass was knocked down by Tom Briscoe, Anthony Thackeray hacked on and won the race to touch down.

Kyle Briggs landed a magnificent conversion from the touchline, but that was as good as it got for the home team.

Ominously, Kallum Watkins had already scored one try for Leeds and created another and they added eight more points before the interval, through Joel Moon’s converted try and a penalty goal.

Playing down the slope in the second half, an early score would have given Featherstone real hope of at least pushing Leeds all the way.

Instead, Leeds scored successive tries and added five in a one-sided third quarter.

Watkins’s second was the game-breaker and Mitch Achurch touched down moments after that.

Carl Ablett went over from a pass by hooker James Segeyaro, who was a big influence, before Tom Briscoe rounded his brother Luke, playing on loan at Featherstone from Leeds, for the visitors’ seventh touchdown.

Liam Sutcliffe had a difficult start to the year when he was asked to make his return from long-term injury as one of Leeds’ play-makers.

He has looked more assured since moving to full-back and finished the game with 26 points. He scored their second and eighth tries and added eight conversions and a penalty.

Leeds’ Jimmy Keinhorst was sin-binned for a professional foul and Thackeray had a touchdown ruled out by video referee Chris Kendall before Moon completed his brace of tries and then Watkins ran in the game’s final two touchdowns.

Featherstone had the consolation of a 6,671 crowd, which was their biggest of the summer era.

Featherstone Rovers: Hardman, Duckworth, Channing, Taulapapa, L Briscoe, Briggs, Thackeray, Bostock, Ellis, Baldwinson, Snitch, Davies, Ormondroyd. Substitutes: Spears, Tagg, Cooper, Griffin.

Leeds Rhinos: Sutcliffe, T Briscoe, Watkins, Moon, Hall, McGuire, Burrow, Galloway, Segeyaro, Singleton, Ferres, Ablett, Jones-Buchanan. Substitutes: Delaney, Garbutt. Keinhorst, Achurch.

Referee: J Cobb (Leigh).