Leeds Rhinos 38 Hull FC 6: Injury-hit Hull lose Jake Connor to a suspected broken hand as Rhinos ease home

Captain's joy: Kruise Leeming celebrates his try against Hull FC. Picture: Matthew Merrick Photography

BOTH teams picked up an injury concern in their final pre-season game as Leeds Rhinos brushed aside an under-strength Hull team 38-6 at Headingley yesterday.

Rhinos centre Harry Newman suffered a hamstring problem early in the first half and the visitors – already weakened by a series of pre-season fitness woes – lost full-back Jake Connor to a suspected broken hand soon afterwards.

Leeds’s assistant-coach Sean Long, standing in for team boss Richard Agar who was isolating following a positive lateral flow test, confirmed: “Harry felt his hamstring tighten up a little bit.

“We didn’t want to risk him so we pulled him off straight away and we’ll send him for a scan.”

Held up: Leeds winger David Fusitu’a is tackled. Picture: Matthew Merrick Photography.

Of Connor, Hull coach Brett Hodgson said: “It looks like a potential broken hand.

“We don’t know the extent of that until we get it scanned.

“It seems to be our luck at the minute, he was just trying to push off – so innocuous.

“With it being a friendly, we just thought it best to get him straight off and protect it.”

Hull also lost youngster Davy Litten who was taken from the field on a stretcher following a crunching tackle by Leeds winger David Fusitu’a.

Litten recovered sufficiently to travel back to Hull on the team bus and Hodgson stressed he had no complaints about the legality of the hit.

Both Leeds’s half-backs, Blake Austin and Aidan Sezer, were sin-binned, as was Hull’s new captain Luke Gale, all in separate incidents.

Hull went 6-0 ahead through an Adam Swift try, but Leeds led by four points at the interval following touchdowns from new Rhinos captain Kruise Leeming and Liam Sutcliffe, who is retrning from a long injury lay-off.

Rhinos scored three tries at the start of the second half, through beneficiary Tom Briscoe, Sezer and Richie Myler and Austin and Rhyse Martin completed the hosts’ tally.

Long reflected: “There is still a bit of work to be done and that’s going to happen in pre-season games, no matter who you play, but I was pleased with the performance.”

Former Huddersfield star Hodgson said: “We came into it under-strength and I thought in the first half the players handled themselves pretty well.”