Hull Kingston Rovers haven’t done anything easy this season and that trend continued in the opening game of the Middle 8s on Saturday afternoon against Championship title winners Leigh Centurions.
Leigh had not lost a home game for nearly two years and Rovers’ away form, in Super League at least, has been atrocious this year with just one win from 12 away games, so Centurions were confident heading into this game.
This really was an acid test for them to confirm that they were good enough for Super League.
Rovers came into the game on the back of their brilliant Challenge Cup semi-final win over Warrington last week, but started the game with Dane Chisholm, on loan from Canterbury Bulldogs, in the halves in place of the talismanic Albert Kelly, whose knee injury may keep him out of the Challenge Cup final according to head coach Chris Chester – personally I’m hoping the mind games have started early!
Leigh went in at halftime 24-6 up. Chisholm opened the scoring with a 90-metre try for Rovers, but the Super League side were awful for the rest of the half, and just could not handle the open and swift style of rugby league that the Centurions were throwing at them. If it wasn’t for the intervention of Kris Welham and Ken Sio then Leigh would have had two more tries and the game would have been out of Hull’s reach.
Leigh fullback Greg McNally scored the try of the half when he followed up a Ryan Brierley break and kick on, catching the ball on the full to steam home under the posts.
Halftime was the best thing to happen for Hull but I still did not expect Rovers to get the win. However, Leigh did not play with the same confidence they had in the first half, and lacked composure and discipline (especially Gareth Hock, who became a liability), whereas Rovers tightened up on ball control and discipline to ground the Centurions down.
Kieran Dixon got Rovers off to the best possible start in the second half when he backed up a Graeme Horne half break to scorch down the right wing and score under the posts.
A Leigh penalty goal was all they could muster in the second half as Rovers added another four second-half tries through Maurice Blair, Tony Puletua, Shaun Lunt and Ben Cockayne – all converted by former Newcastle Knights reserve grader Josh Mantellato – to record a 36-26 victory.
Rovers fans knew this game would be tough but Rovers’ first-half performance was unacceptable and coach Chris Chester needed to vent his spleen at halftime to get the reaction he wanted from his team. In the first half Leigh played superbly and caused Rovers all sorts of problems; they would have blown any Championship side away before half time, but Super League sides tend to stick around and play for the full 80 minutes and this is where Leigh failed.
Their composure and discipline disappeared in the second half when Rovers started piling the pressure on and the game management of the Rovers halfbacks Chisholm and Blair was far superior in the second half.
The Centurions can be very proud of their effort but the jury is still out as to whether they will make it to Super League at the end of the Middle 8 qualifiers. At the minimum they will be in the ‘million pound’ game that will decide the 12th Super League team for 2016, but they will now be fully aware of the tough task they have ahead of them.
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