Leigh Leopards 34 Hull KR 4: Robins unravel in the rain on nightmare night

Rovers head coach Willie Peters is still carrying around the pain of the last-gasp loss to Leigh Leopards at Craven Park in March, using his pre-match press conference to make it clear his team had to use that feeling to their advantage.

Instead, he saw the Robins produce their worst performance of the season on their way to a damaging defeat.

KR were lacklustre from minute one and got what they deserved in wretched conditions.

The visiting fans would have been fearing a long night when Mikey Lewis was sin-binned just four minutes in for a wild challenge on Tom Briscoe.

Leigh scored two tries in the playmaker's absence and did not relinquish their grip on a game that had been billed as a four-pointer by Peters.

The convincing victory takes the Leopards up to second place and leaves Rovers outside the play-off positions looking in.

Worryingly for the Robins as they switch their attention to next week's home derby against Hull FC, they have now lost eight of their 11 meetings with top-six sides this year.

It is a record they must improve if they are to extend their season but first they must pick the bones out of a performance that will be remembered for a comedy of errors.

The last time the sides met at Leigh Sports Village in August 2021, Hull KR edged a high-scoring thriller to boost their play-off hopes and keep the Centurions – as they were known then – winless.

Leigh are a club transformed on their return to Super League after recruiting a raft of proven top-level performers.

Adrian Lam's side occupied a top-four place heading into round 17 with a two-point advantage over Rovers by virtue of their victory at Craven Park.

The backlash did not materialise on a comfortable night for the impressive Leopards.

From a Hull KR perspective, the writing was on the wall when Lewis sent the kick-off out on the full.

Although Ben Reynolds failed to find touch from the subsequent penalty, the die was cast.

The Leopards grabbed the initiative early on and did not give the abject Robins a look-in in a one-sided first half.

Leigh took the game away from their visitors while Lewis was in the sin bin for a bizarre challenge on Briscoe, the half-back racing through to chase a kick that rolled dead only to take out the former Leeds Rhinos winger with a slide tackle in slippery conditions.

The officials deemed the incident worthy of a yellow card and Leigh quickly set about punishing Lewis.

Briscoe displayed strength and dexterity to finish in the corner with Rovers stretched on their left edge before Edwin Ipape used the wet surface to slide over following a break by Lachlan Lam.

Lewis returned to find his team 10-0 down – and the situation did not improve.

Ed Chamberlain benefited from more soft defence to score Leigh's third try in front of a stunned away end and Reynolds added a second goal to make it 16-0 inside the opening quarter.

The Leigh half-back sent a penalty wide before Josh Charnley had a try harshly ruled out after Ricky Leutele's crunching hit on Fouad Yaha was penalised.

Rovers tried to land some blows of their own but failed to carve out a clear-cut opportunity and there was no way back after Charnley went over out wide from Gareth O'Brien's pass four minutes from half-time.

In keeping with a first half littered with errors, Tanguy Zenon allowed a 40/20 to dribble out to give Leigh perfect field position and Charnley made Rovers pay.

The Robins needed to score next to make a game of it but they failed to take advantage of back-to-back drop-outs and suffered the ignominy of conceding a comical penalty try.

After Zenon dropped the ball close to his line and Shaun Kenny-Dowall was dragged into the in-goal area, KR's decision to go short from the drop-out backfired spectacularly. Tom Opacic slipped trying to gather Kenny-Dowall's pat-back and Matt Parcell was adjudged to have denied a certain try after tackling Leutele without the ball.

Rovers found themselves in damage limitation mode with half an hour still left to play but there was more pain to come, former prop Robbie Mulhern crashing over after taking Reynolds' inside ball to bring up Leigh's 30.

Lewis belatedly got KR on the board with a solo effort with 10 minutes remaining but it was scant consolation for the well-beaten visitors.

Leigh Leopards: O'Brien, Briscoe, Hardaker, Leutele, Charnley, Reynolds, Lam, Mulhern, Ipape, Amone, Chamberlain, Holmes, Asiata. Substitutes: Hughes, Nakubuwai, Mellor, Norman.

Hull KR: Zenon, Yaha, Opacic, Kenny-Dowall, Hall, Lewis, Milnes, Luckley, Litten, King, Hadley, Linnett, Minchella. Substitutes: Parcell, Kennedy, Storton, Aydin.

Referee: Marcus Griffiths.