Castleford crush Leeds to book Challenge Cup quarter-final spot

Jamie Jones-Buchanan had spoken passionately this week about how this Challenge Cup tie presented Leeds Rhinos with an opportunity to alter their focus and reinvigorate their season. But by the end, this had an eerily familiar feeling to so much we have seen from one of rugby league’s biggest clubs so far in 2022 as their involvement in the cup was ruthlessly ended by Castleford Tigers at the first hurdle.

It is perhaps unsurprising that, in a week that began with the first coaching casualty of the year as Richard Agar departed Headingley on Monday, we end it with more questions than answers surrounding Leeds. Who it is that finds those answers remains to be seen as Leeds conduct a worldwide search for Agar’s successor but, despite the final scoreline suggesting some semblance of competitiveness here, whoever the new man is will be alarmed by what they witnessed.

Jones-Buchanan, who won everything with the club as a player, insisted that tough times in his own career had steeled him for his first game as interim head coach. Yet nothing could have prepared him for what he saw in a disastrous first half, which ended with Leeds 28-0 behind and simply left with too much work to do to set up a quarter-final tie with Hull Kingston Rovers.

That honour instead belonged to Castleford, who were worthy winners courtesy of the best half of rugby they have strung together since Lee Radford arrived in the off-season. Leeds’s frailties were best summed up early on; some early promise came to very little and when they conceded first at the opposite end courtesy of Jake Trueman’s try, their game fell apart. Jake Mamo crossed next and when Gareth O’Brien scampered through after a fine offload from Liam Watts, Leeds were 16-0 behind and in