‘It was eventful’ - Leeds Rhinos coach Richard Agar reflects on bad-tempered Salford win

Agar described his side’s first game in a month – during which Bodene Thompson was sent-off and Luke Gale sin-binned – as “eventful”.

Salford had Lee Mossop dismissed and Jack Wells and Ryan Lannon were each shown a yellow card.

Rhinos made a better job of handling the disruption and Agar reflected: “I am pleased to get the win, I thought we shared the workload around really well.”

He said: “Going down to 12 and then 11, the referee was brought into it a number of times because of some discipline issues from both teams.

“I thought we adapted to some of those situations really well and we showed a terrific desire defensively.”

After an error-ridden first half, Agar was happy with the way his side tightened up following the interval.

“Our ball control was around 58 per cent at half-time and Salford were at around 90,” he said.

“We felt if we could eradicate some of those errors it was a game we felt we could go on with in the second half, which we did.

“After they got an interception try, we came back with two tries before half-time and I thought that was a really big period in terms of deciding the contest.”

Four of Leeds’ players had been on international duty two days earlier, when Gale and Mikolaj Oledzki were part of an England team beaten by a Combined Nations All Stars side including Kruise Leeming and Matt Prior.

Leeming played the full 80 minutes of yesterday’s game, out of position at half-back and Agar described all the effort from four as “massive”.

He said: “It was tough, backing up within 48 hours and we also play this Thursday and then again on Monday.

“It is a fairly challenging situation and I don’t think, as a sport, we should be getting ourselves into positions like this.”