‘He is a terrific competitor’ – Leeds boss praises Harry Newman

Drew Darbyshire
Harry Newman Leeds Rhinos News Images

Photo: Gareth Evans/News Images

Leeds coach Rohan Smith was full of praise for centre Harry Newman after his try scoring exploits against Wigan on Friday night.

Newman bagged a brace to help inspire a remarkable Rhinos comeback as they beat Wigan 40-18 at the DW Stadium on Friday evening.

Leeds trailed 14-0 after half an hour but Smith’s side scored 34 points in the second half to complete an impressive comeback.

“Harry’s been very good with his defence particularly,” Smith said after the game.

“He is a good reader of play and he trusts his instincts which is great and that’s what happened there.

“That big play (his first try) was him reading the play, trusting his instinct and then being able to execute in the first half.

“I haven’t watched the second half one on replay but I thought it was good, patient right edge defence and that in itself can apply pressure to attacking players at times so he took his chances well in that regard.

“He’s rolling his sleeves up and chasing kicks hard and carrying the ball in yardage hard. He is competing well. He is a terrific competitor, Harry.”

Harry Newman helps inspire Leeds comeback with two tries

Smith praised his side’s never say die attitude as they once again came from behind to win.

He added: “There’s a lot of resilience and belief in the room.

“Things are never that good and never that bad – that’s how I try to be. I think the way they held in there when things were particularly clunky for a passage in the first half that the score was still not that bad. It gave us a chance to be able to re-group and turn that around.

“I’d say it was a collective team performance. Some blokes were clunky first half but then really found a strong performance in the second half which shows a lot of character.

“It’s a brave thing what rugby league players do to put themselves out like that and when you’re failing at it a bit, it’s even braver to bounce back a bit and find it in you to compete and test a team as good as Wigan on their patch.

“It’s not very often things like that happen tonight but that’s the beauty of sport, there’s always a surprise around the corner.

“I think all of us can go to a Super League game at the moment and most games could go either way which is a good state for our competition to be in.”

Leeds face Wigan again this week in the Challenge Cup sixth round at Headingley on Saturday, 2:30 kick-off.

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