Moon confident of Rhinos grounding the Airlie Birds

LEEDS Rhinos centre Joel Moon admits defeat against Wigan Warriors was “heart-breaking” but insists the champions can quickly arrest their recent slump.

The Australian thought he had set up Danny McGuire for what could have been a match-winning try against the Super League leaders in the final game of a dramatic Magic Weekend on Sunday night.

However, video referee Ian Smith spotted a debatable obstruction in the build-up to the free-flowing move and disallowed the late effort to leave the West Yorkshire club 20-16 losers.

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“I was pretty excited as I thought that was the game-breaker,” conceded Moon, who has been a revelation since joining from Salford City Reds last winter.

“So, to see that call then go against us was pretty heart-breaking. Different refs have different views for situations.

“I guess our man didn’t really take the Wigan player out but – in the end – the call went their way.

“It is pretty disappointing. Both teams played well, there were a few chances we didn’t take and a few calls that didn’t go in our favour. But that’s footy and we have to move on. We will do.”

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Leeds – who are in danger of losing four successive games for the first time since 2006 – are soon back in action, at Hull FC on Friday evening.

Their in-form opponents controversially benefited from a huge video refereeing blunder themselves to secure a victory over Hull KR on Saturday.

That was the Airlie Birds’ eighth win in nine games and another would see them rise above Rhinos into fourth spot.

“Hull will be flying this week and it’ll be another tough one for us,” added Moon.

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“We’ve got to turn around this week, but all the boys are ready to go. We’ve been playing some good football and it’s not like we’ve not been performing.

“We’re still playing well so we’ll take some stuff out of what happened versus Wigan into Hull.”

It is not only the RFL’s referees department where there has been an embarrassing mistake of late.

There was surprise on Sunday evening when a total weekend attendance of 62,042 was announced at the Etihad Stadium – suggesting almost 3,000 people simply did not turn up.

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A press release sent out by their media department last week stated 65,000 tickets had already been sold, but it emerges that should, instead, have read 55,000.

Surprisingly, considering the fine weather, the aggregate was down on last year’s 63,716 attendance at Manchester City’s ground.

Australian scrum-half Brett Seymour says he is ready to play rugby again after his suicide attempt.

He was released by Hull earlier this season after the incident in March and was treated for depression at the Sporting Clinic, but has now returned home.