Leigh Leopards let big lead slip away against Leeds Rhinos

Leigh ran riot with three tries in the opening half from Gareth O'Brien, Umyla Hanley and Kai O'Donnell.

Leeds started the fightback through Rhyse Martin, just moments after Leopards' Hanley was denied a try by the video referee.

The Rhinos began to smell blood when O'Brien was given a sin bin and a try from Matt Frawley was followed by Ash Handley's brace to condemn Leigh to a third straight defeat.

The hosts took the lead in the 12th minute when O'Brien pierced a gap in the Rhinos defence and bounced over, but Matt Moylan missed the extras.

Eight minutes later, after facing a spell of pressure on their own try line, Leigh broke away and scored their second try of the game.

From a 20-metre restart, Hanley was quick to get possession and O'Donnell bundled over the try line.

Leopards added another try in the 25th minute. Rhinos looked short of numbers down the right and O'Brien's clever pass out the back of the hand found the onrushing Hanley, who dived over in the corner.

Leeds' lack of discipline started to seep into the encounter and Leigh had a chance to kick two after Robbie Mulhern was hit high by Jarrod O'Connor and Moylan kicked between the sticks to make it 16-0.

The hosts were denied a fourth try on the stroke of half-time as the video referee confirmed Tom Amone did not ground the ball.

Leigh started the second half in similar fashion and thought they had another try when Hanley dived over in similar style to his first score, but the video referee once again chalked it off as Hanley's foot skimmed the in-touch line.

Leeds' Andy Ackers was lucky to still be on the pitch after his high tackle on O'Donnell went without punishment.

A couple of minutes later, Leeds were on the board with their first foray forward of the second period as skipper Martin twisted and turned before falling over the whitewash.

Leigh were reduced to 12 players temporarily as O'Brien was shown a yellow card for a professional foul while Leeds were looking to counter.

Leeds made the man advantage count. Frawley weaved his way through the Leopards' defence and dived over beneath the sticks to cut the deficit to just four points.

After looking second best in the contest for 50 minutes, Leeds were on level terms with 15 minutes left when Handley latched on to Martin's grubber, played a neat one-two with Paul Momirovski and touched down.

Leeds completed the turnaround with 11 minutes left as Martin and Brodie Croft helped set Handley away for his second of the match.

The Rhinos were forced to play the remainder of the game with a numerical disadvantage after Justin Sangare was given a yellow for a late challenge on Amone, but they hung on for victory.

Leigh boss Adrian Lam thought his side played their best half of rugby this season before seeing Leeds hit back in the second half.

He said: "A little bit frustrated with the effort we put in, I feel we deserved something out of the game.

"I thought the first half was as good a footy we have played during my time here so far and thought the second 40 was just disruption after disruption.

"I'm just disappointed for the players and devastated that they have put all that effort in but come away from the game with nothing."