Leeds Rhinos turn on style to hand Huddersfield Giants reality check

The hosts got off to a quick start after Lachie Miller’s kick-off went out on the full, the visitors paying the price as George King powered over by the posts.

But Leeds responded in style with five tries before the break. Croft got his first in the ninth minute by poking through a gap before Jarrod O’Connor, Jack Bird and Ryan Hall crossed, and a near-perfect first period was rounded off when Miller collected his own chip to make it 28-6.

Jacob Douglas scored Huddersfield’s second try of the night a minute before the break but the Rhinos were relentless at the start of the second period. Cameron Smith got the scoring back under way four minutes into the half before Croft grabbed two more tries in the space of three minutes for his hat-trick.

Jacob Gagai got the Giants’ third but Leeds still had time to score more as Maika Sivo walked over the whitewash in the corner for his 13th of the season.

Croft got his fourth 11 minutes from time for Leeds’ 10th try of the night before Oliver Russell replied late for Giants which proved to be nothing more than a consolation.

Leeds boss Brad Arthur found plenty for his side to improve on despite a big scoreline, saying: “We just lack a bit of concentration at times and I’m more than happy to back them when we move the ball and we take a few chances and we want to play like that.

“Look, there’s plenty of positives. You’re always chasing that perfection and unfortunately you’re never going to get it. We know that but we also know we’re better than that.”

Huddersfield interim coach Liam Finn said: “Very tough day. We’d obviously had a couple of good results, but we certainly weren’t falling in love with ourselves. We knew we were on a journey to keep improving.

“We scored the early try but I don’t think that helped us really. Defensively, at the start of the game, we were really poor through the middle, and the first two tries were as soft as they come.”