By Guy Harvey

Mark Butterill’s scholarship side made their final home appearance at Headingley welcoming a strong side from Hull Kingston Rovers who had won five of their six games during the 2024 scholarship season but with a hat trick of tries from Luke Fagan plus single tries from the Hardy Brothers and Wade White the Rhinos continued their unbeaten season.

The game began at ferocious pace as well as being matched with steely defence and the spectators in attendance at AMT Headingley quickly realised, they were in for a treat on the night. It only took the home side five minutes to post their first points of the night capitalising on a knock on from Hull KR when second row forward Zak Lloyd offloaded in the tackle catching the Rovers defence off guard and with quick hands the ball found winger Luke Fagan with just enough space to dive over in the corner.

Fagan would double his tally on the night with thirty minutes on the clock following back-to-back penalties from firstly a high tackle and then interference at the play the ball put the Rhinos in dangerous territory and when half back pairing Kai Irvine and Jacob Hardy combined well to shift the ball quickly to the right edge moving the ball at such a speed the Rovers defence couldn’t cross the field quick enough to cover the space and as with his first try Fagan dove over in the corner, however Zak Lloyd was able to put over the touchline conversion making it 10-0 to the Rhinos with half time approaching.

The youthful Rhinos took the small lead in to break but you can be assured that the Rhinos coaching staff will have been more pleased with the defensive effort in the half to keep the Rovers scoreless because the visitors certainly had many opportunities to score and looked very dangerous throughout, however the Rhinos defensive resilience was just too strong.

The half time break certainly came at the right time for the visitors and the opportunity for the coaching staff to have a talk to their side showed as they came out for the second half and hit the ground running and scored their first points in the games two minutes into the half when a cross field kick was gathered in spectacular fashion by Keijimi Ashaolu before he dove over to score the try but with the conversion missed the score read 10-4.

Despite their efforts that would be the Rovers only points on the night although on any other occasion they could have reached well over thirty points which pays testament to the Rhinos defence. The Rhinos were just as emphatic in attack and hit back minutes later after Kai Irvine was held up in goal Leeds had one final tackle which saw Wade White fire a fantastic cross field kick which was taken superbly by first year scholar Bailey Hardy and with a twist in the tackle found himself scoring the try in the corner pushing the scoreline to 14-4.

Midway through the second half Fagan finally made it a hat-trick when Rhinos spotted that the Rovers defence had become very compact in the middle and with quick hands again as in the first half the ball found Fagan with an easy stroll into the corner for the try but with another missed conversion the score only moved to 18-8.

With the clock ticking down and only minutes remaining both sides were still playing with such speed as they were in minute one! But with a scrum on Rovers ten metre line, they looked to use a move straight from the training ground and shifted the ball quickly from the base of the scrum and found Wade White with a pass out to the back, where White immediately put his foot down and raced round the edge of the Rovers defence to squeeze in at the corner but again the conversion missed meant the score just crept to 22-4. However, the young Rhinos weren’t finished there, and with only minutes left stand off Jacob Hardy didn’t want his brother to be the only Hardy on the score sheet, then with a delicate chip across field Jacob leapt through the air to gather the ball whilst twisting to evade any Rovers defender before grounding the ball and with a successful conversion from Kai Irvine Leeds had a 28-4 win against a fantastic Hull Kingston Rovers side that the scoreline really didn’t show what an outstanding effort the visitors had put but also could of looked a lot worse for them had Leeds been more accurate in attack.

Leeds Rhinos Scholarship

Will Hunter
Luke Fagan
Tom Richardson
Jacob Tooala
Bailey Hardy
Jacob Hardy
Kai Irvine
James Rowney
Noah Lunn
Caleb Rhodes
Zak Lloyd
Alfie Steel
Brennan Townend
Wade White
Ryan Hosier
Connor Mullins
Sonny Hetherington
Robin Smith
Will Mathers
Dacx Jones-Buchanan

Hull Kingston Rovers Scholarship

James Wilson
Riley Dunn
Cameron Brigham
Louis Barrett
Keijimi Ashaolu
Preston Pittman (19)
Harrison Horne
Alfie Petty
Jack Redshaw
Alfie Wainberg-Woods
Jake Myers
Adam Todd
Luca Irwin
Charlie Forrester (21)
Alfie Ebot Enombi (23)
Drew Docherty
Prince Michale Nwachukwu Obasi (14)
Evan Adamson (24)
Henry Tully (25)
Rhys Williams