Coach - Sinfield is unbelievable

Sinfield: landed seven conversions out of seven

If we're disallowing tries like that I don't know where we're going with the game. It's no surprise knowing who the video ref was, it's no surprise to me whatsoever, but it was just a dead-set try.

Richard Agar
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Brian McClennan was full of praise for Kevin Sinfield's place kicking after the Leeds captain converted all seven of the Rhinos' tries during their 43-30 win at Hull FC.

The victory at the KC Stadium moves Leeds back within two points of engage Super League leaders St Helens.

Sinfield landed six of his seven conversions from the touchline to leave his head coach McClennan impressed.

"He's an outstanding kicker and his form over the last month has been unbelievable he's been banging them over from everywhere," said McClennan.

"I was pretty happy with that, we were pretty comfortable.

"It was hot out there and I thought both teams really attacked and really put on some good plays. We know we can defend a lot better than that but we're still happy to get the two points."

Harsh words

Hull FC coach Richard Agar had some harsh words for video referee Ben Thaler after his men slipped to a 12th loss in 15 games.

Their performance was better than that statistic suggests, though, as former Australia star Shaun Berrigan inspired them to produce one of their best showings of the season.

But Agar was left to rue a first-half decision that went against his men, when Thaler, who has also been on the receiving end of some high-profile criticism from Hull KR coach Justin Morgan this season, deemed that Paul King had caused an obstruction in the build-up to a try by Willie Manu.

"I still for the life of me can't fathom why that try was disallowed, I've no idea," Agar said.

"If we're disallowing tries like that I don't know where we're going with the game. It's no surprise knowing who the video ref was, it's no surprise to me whatsoever, but it was just a dead-set try.

"It was a poor read by the defender and poor read by the video ref. Kingy punched into the hole and the defender went with him, the ball didn't take anyone out, I didn't think it affected what came of the try.

"I thought it had no effect on the try, purely and simply a poor read and that would have put the score to 18-10, 18-12."

Agar, who also described the decisions not to award forward passes against Leeds in the approach to their opening two scores as "incredible" did take some comfort from his players' improved performance.

Emotion

"We can take plenty out of it," he said. "We spoke about passion and commitment and certainly spoke about emotion at half-time and we saw plenty of it in the second half.

"Their heads could have gone down after the first 15 minutes. We hung in there fighting.

"I'm not taking anything away from Leeds because they're a great side and in good form but I think a couple of big things didn't go our way.

"When you're down, the last thing you need is kicking and I thought that's what happened to us a couple of times."

Agar also lost Richard Horne to an eye injury and ex-Leeds prop Jamie Thackray to a hamstring problem.