Leeds Rhinos coach Rohan Smith says 'feelgood factor' is back after 32-4 win v Castleford Tigers

Leeds dominated throughout, led 14-0 at half-time and scored five tries to one to complete a Betfred Super League double over their closest neighbours. The win came after back to back defeats by Catalans Dragons and St Helens and was their seventh victory from 13 league rounds.

As well as lifting Leeds into the top-six - ahead of Salford Red Devils’ clash with London Broncos on Sunday - it eased some of the pressure on Smith and his players and the coach insisted: “I don’t think it does much for the belief. I think there’s a high level of belief in the group and that has maybe led to some of the frustration or disappointment.

“If you don’t believe you can play at a high level, you shouldn’t be that disappointed if you get beaten by a strong team. This season we’ve been beaten by strong teams, but we have taken it to them and been in every game. Certainly for confidence and feelgood factor, it does plenty for that because we executed some stuff we’ve practised and worked on, as well as generally just ripping into the game on both sides of the ball.

“I really liked the temperament where people weren’t worried about a mistake; they just got on with it. I think at other times we’ve maybe wallowed in it, but we just got on with it and played really good footy.”

Third-bottom Tigers never got their game together, but Smith felt the visitors’ poor form shouldn’t detract from the way his side played. He insisted: “It was a very pleasing performance.

“We attacked the game from the start, I thought we played with confidence from the kick-off and didn’t give the other team a glimpse in the contest from a scoreboard point of view. We were quite relentless with our work and that made a difference.

“In the last few weeks some players have come back into the group - Paul Momirovski getting ahead of schedule with his rehab and coming back into the team made a real difference to the right edge. The kid on the outside of him - Alfie Edgell - is learning how to play wing really well and it was a good team performance I thought.

“From start to finish we were a team. We maybe left a couple of points out there, but that was a strong performance on a difficult week.”

Tigers rarely got into Leeds territory in the first half and Smith felt Rhinos “won the position battle”. He also believed an early disallowed touchdown for Cameron Smith should have been awarded and claimed there was a doubt over Castleford’s lone score.

He reflected: “We attacked with our defence and our kick-return footy was really strong, then we were getting some decent kick-finishes and contests so we were winning that cycle.

“They had some position in the second half, but our defence was really strong. Their only try came from a shift after an obstruction on the opposite side of the field. I thought we deserved a zero today.”