Castleford 66-10 Leeds: Tigers run riot against Rhinos
Last Updated: 03/03/17 6:33am
Castleford produced a scintillating performance to demolish Leeds 66-10 in their Super League clash on Thursday.
Wingers Greg Minikin and Greg Eden both grabbed hat-tricks as the in-form Tigers ran in 12 tries to two against their patched-up opponents to claim a fifth successive win over their big city rivals.
This was their biggest ever win over the Rhinos, eclipsing their 52-12 triumph at Headingley last May, much to the delight of the bulk of the sell-out crowd of 11,500 at the Jungle.
Scrum-half Luke Gale contributed 22 points with a try and nine goals while full-back Zak Hardaker, who is on a season-long loan from Leeds, inevitably scored and impressed against his parent club.
Leeds had a full pack missing because of injury and suspension while scrum-half Rob Burrow pulled out on the day of the game through illness, forcing coach Brian McDermott to hurriedly recall Jordan Lilley from his loan spell with Bradford.
Castleford were forced to play hooker Paul McShane at stand-off in the absence of Rangi Chase through suspension and Ben Roberts through injury but it was little inconvenience as he slotted into a well-oiled machine that is scoring tries at will, largely through its wingers.
Leeds were a shambles throughout the first half, with handling errors directly creating the position for their opponents to score three of their first four tries.
Hardaker got Eden over for the first just two minutes after full-back Ashton Golding lost the ball in the tackle 10 metres from his own line and McShane was heavily involved in the next three tries.
He supplied key passes for Minikin to go over twice in five minutes before stealing the ball from Ashton on halfway to set up the position for Eden to finish off a another crisp passing movement for his second.
Minikin then provided the final pass for second rower Mike McMeeken to go over following a break out of defence by Hardaker but the best try came on the stroke of half-time, with Gale accepting an offload on halfway by Junior Moors to race clear and kick to the corner for the right winger to pick up and dive over for his third try.
Gale's third conversion made it 30-0 at the break and it took the home side just three minutes of the second half to add to their tally.
Lilley's failed interception attempt gifted Castleford another dangerous attacking position and Gale got Hardaker through a gap for his side's seventh try before another Leeds old boy, McShane, exploited more shoddy defensive work for their eighth.
Gale extended the lead to 42-0 before Leeds substitute Anthony Mullally hacked forward a loose ball near the Castleford line and dived on the ball to claim a consolation try, which was goaled by Liam Sutcliffe.
It proved to be little more than a minor irritation for the rampant Tigers, however, as centre Jake Webster charged through a threadbare defence and Eden completed his hat-trick before Gale and skipper Michael Shenton added further tries in the last 10 minutes.
The final whistle came as a merciful relief to the Rhinos, although they had the dubious distinction of scoring the final try through centre Joel Moon.
