Leeds Rhinos 0 St Helens 48 - Amazing Regan Grace swats Rhinos aside

It was a harsh lesson for Leeds who were second-best in all departments, created only a couple of chances and conceded eight tries, all of them converted by Lachlan Coote.

After five successive wins, Leeds went into the game in high spirits, but could not match Saints’ speed or power.

It was a sensational performance by the visitors whose winger Regan Grace scored a dazzling hat-trick, two of them from close to his own line.

Coote and big prop Alex Walmsley also dominated against a Leeds side weakened by the unavailability of Richie Myler, Konrad Hurrell, Rob Lui and James Donaldson from the team which beat Huddersfield Giants in their first game after coronavirus.

Leeds were never in it and conceded 24 points in each half. It was the third-heaviest margin of defeat in any game at Headingley and their worst in Super League.

Coach Richard Agar pulled no punches afterwards, admitting his team’s poor ball control – plus some penalties and wrong decisions – in the first half dug a deep hole.

Agar said: “There were some good periods of effort, but the lesson for us is if you want to be the benchmark team in the competition you have got to do it over longer periods.”

Leeds couldn’t recover from a poor start which saw them trail 12-0 after only 16 minutes.

Only a decent effort in the third quarter kept Saints below the half-century.

Brad Dwyer made an excellent tackle to keep Jonny Lomax out in the opening exchanges, but James Graham crashed over on the next play and Coote booted the first of his perfect eight conversions.

That was after eight minutes and then Dwyer’s pass to Sutcliffe, deep inside Rhinos territory, was forward and from the turnover Alex Walmsley crashed over off Theo Fages’s pass.

The writing was already on the wall at that stage and on 26 minutes Fages and Kevin Naiqama linked across the line for Tommy Makinson to score at the corner.

Leeds steadied the ship after that, but on the final play of the half Grace broke from near his own line, skipped round stand-in full-back Ash Handley on half-way and then beat Luke Gale’s attempted tackle for a spectacular touchdown.

Leeds gave as good as they got until the 17th minute of the second period when Grace went over again, from Lomax’s pass, after Callum McLelland and Adam Cuthbertson had done well to hold up Zeb Taia.

Leeds were attacking with 15 minutes left when Grace again picked up the ball a few metres out and went the length of the field at Headingley to complete his hat-trick.

On 74 minutes Walmsley broke through the middle and Fages was in support to cross and in the final seconds Rhinos turned the ball over near their own line and James Bentley put Coote in.

Rhinos had no real scoring opportunities in the first half and only a couple after the break; when they created an overlap and Rhyse Martin’s pass toward the right-wing went into touch; then Handley made a break, but his pass inside wasn’t a good one and Gale couldn’t take it.

The four tries conceded in the final 23 minutes was a painful blow for Agar, who felt his men ran up the white flag.

He said: “We didn’t want to let our effort drop and I thought towards the back end of the game we got soft, really really soft.”

As for Saints, after an indifferent start to the year they have now won both their games since Super League’s return from coronavirus and look to be back to their best.

“They are probably playing a little bit of a different game to everyone else in terms of the speed and skill they’ve got in the team and the power they have through the middle.” conceded Aga, who refused to use injuries as an excuse.

“We had some strike power missing, a third of our cap unavailable to select, but I thought we had a team that could certainly do better than that scoreline,” he said.

St Helens coach Kristian Woolf was full of praise for winger Grace.

“He’s a little bit different to the guys you get in the NRL,” said Woolf, who doubles up as coach of World Cup semi-finalists Tonga.

“He’s so energetic, has great footwork and a turn of speed that can turn nothing into something, which he did tonight.

“It’s nice to see him get a bit of open space. He didn’t get that much last week or before the break.”

Leeds Rhinos: Handley, L Briscoe, Newman, A Sutcliffe, T Briscoe, McLelland, Gale, Seumanufagai, Dwyer, Prior, Mellor, Martin, C Smith. Substitutes: Oledzki, Cuthbertson, Leeming, Evans.

St Helens: Coote, Makinson, Naiqama, Costello, Grace, Lomax, Fages, Walmsley, Roby, Graham, Taia, Bentley, Knowles. Substitutes: McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Lees, Amor, A Smith.

Referee: C Kendall (Huddersfield).

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