London Broncos 10-36 Leeds Rhinos: Jack Walker's double helps all but seal safety
By PA Sport
Last Updated: 01/09/19 6:45pm
Leeds Rhinos all but secured their Betfred Super League status and plunged London Broncos further into trouble with a 36-10 victory in the capital.
With Hull Kingston Rovers' victory away to Catalans Dragons on Saturday, the pressure was always going to be on the Broncos as they began the day two points adrift of safety at the bottom of the table.
The first try of the game came as a result of a mistake, Elliot Kear losing the ball forward in the tackle, leaving Luke Briscoe with the simple task of scooping up and racing untouched to the try-line to finish under the posts. Rhyse Martin added the conversion to give the visitors an early 6-0 lead.
The home side, though, were not to be deterred and spent the next five minutes or so camped deep in Rhinos territory. Their best chance came through Kieran Dixon jinking his way inside from his wing, however a knock-on brought the attack to a halt.
But the Rhinos went straight down the other end and were much more clinical than the hosts as Ava Seumanufagai burst over from a metre out, with Martin again adding the extras to stretch the lead to 12-0.
Just before half-time the visitors took complete control as they stretched the lead yet further. Brett Ferres fought off his tackler superbly before offloading to Jack Walker who danced his way through the remainder of the Broncos' defence to give them an 18-0 lead with Martin's conversion.
Less than five minutes after the restart and the hosts were finally on the board. Dixon, as has become his speciality this season, intercepted the ball from Walker on the fourth tackle and sprinted the best part of 90 metres to score under the posts. He converted his own effort.
Two minutes later and London were back in the game, Brock Lamb's long pass was dangerously close to being intercepted by Konrad Hurrell but it instead landed in the hands of Ryan Morgan who ran through untouched to cross the whitewash.
Any hopes of a comeback were put to bed with 10 minutes to go, however, when Ash Handley finished off a nice flowing move to touch down in the corner, Martin adding the extras to make it 24-10.
The game was wrapped up with five minutes to go as Harry Newman was presented with a two-on-one and unselfishly offloaded to the onrushing Walker to run through untouched to finish under the posts before Brad Dwyer sealed the win from a metre out.
