Rhinos run over Warriors

Leeds Rhinos maintained their perfect start to the Super League season with a 34-10 demolition of Wigan on Friday night.

Tries from Kylie Leuluai, Luke Donald, Rob Burrow, Ryan Hall (two) and Jamie Peacock marked a truly dominant display by the champions who look in ominous form already at this early stage of the campaign.

The Rhinos had conceded just five Super League tries in four games coming into this game and only allowed Shaun Ainscough and Gareth Hock to cross for consolation scores on a difficult night for the Warriors at Headingley Carnegie.

Defeat ends a two-match winning streak for Brian Noble's side and takes the Rhinos outright on their own at the top of the table by two points.

One-way traffic

A superb booming kick from Pat Richards got the game underway, but that was to be one of the few highlights of the half for the Warriors as Burrow's 40-20 kick took the Rhinos to within 10 metres of the Wigan tryline. From the resulting set of six, Hall and Danny McGuire kept the ball alive allowing Leuluai to power over for the game's first converted try.

It took five minutes for Wigan to even get hands on the ball, but they could not sustain their spell of possession as a knock on from Hock led to a second converted try for the champions.

Ainscough showed his inexperience in defence with an air shot at McGuire's chip kick through that let Donald in for the Rhinos' second.

The Warriors were reeling and things got worse when Ian Kirke broke through a tiring defensive Wigan line before feeding Donald. The try-scoring winger found McGuire inside who then offloaded for diminutive half-back Burrow to scamper over for a third converted try to the Rhinos inside 20 minutes.

Leeds' fluidity at dummy half in the absence of hooker Matt Diskin was causing Wigan all sorts of problems and with fatigue setting in a second 40-20 - this time from full-back Lee Smith - led to their fourth try of the game. McGuire and Ali Lauitiiti combined to send Hall over in the corner and, though Kevin Sinfield erred for the first with the boot in four attempts, it was a commanding lead at the half hour mark.

Pivotal

Wigan scored from their first period of sustained possession in Leeds territory, though, as Thomas Leuluai's huge crossfield pass found Ainscough and the young winger raced in for his fourth try of the season to reduce the deficit to 22-6 at half-time.

And the Warriors came out looking revitalised after the restart and would have been right back in the game but for offside and obstruction ruling out tries for Leuluai and Hock respectively.

Instead it was Burrow who again acted decisively in putting a high hanging kick up for Hall to out-jump Amos Roberts and go over in the corner. Sinfield added the extras and the Rhinos had restored their 22-point lead.

Handling errors and missed tackles continued to constrict the Warriors' attacking flow at vital moments and Harrison Hansen's error led to Peacock being awarded a debatable try by the video referee when Sean O'Loughlin had appeared to get his hand under the ball. Sinfield added the conversion to make it 34-6.

Hock finished a try of his own making with less than three minutes remaining, but it was little consolation for the visitors who were soundly beaten.