Rhinos claim comeback win
Super League champions Leeds Rhinos scored a dramatic comeback victory over West Yorkshire rivals Huddersfield.
Last Updated: 14/06/09 5:57pm
Teenager Kallum Watkins capped a dramatic Leeds Rhinos comeback with a sensational try in the last minute of their Super League clash with Huddersfield.
The Giants had threatened to pull off their first win at Headingley for 49 years and leapfrog the Rhinos into second place in the table after pressuring the hosts into a number of errors.
Huddersfield led 12-0 at one point but were forced to defend for most of the second half and the pressure eventually told, with Leeds scoring two tries in the last 11 minutes to secure victory.
The visitors enjoyed the better start as Leeds struggled to cope without their England trio of Jamie Peacock, Danny McGuire and Ryan Hall.
Missed opportunities from Martin Aspinwall and Shaun Lunt were made to look costly when the Super League champions built up a head of steam and went on to dominate the rest of the first half, only to experience a series of near-misses themselves.
Fumble
Scott Donald fumbled Lee Smith's pass with the line beckoning and comfortably won the chase to his centre partner's kick to the line but failed to ground the ball.
Substitute Luke Burgess also let a chance go begging when he dropped Robert Burrow's pass with the Huddersfield defence breached.
Giants winger David Hodgson produced a couple of poor errors but finished decisively for the only try of the first half, taking Kevin Brown's pass to claim his 12th try of the season. Brett Hodgson added the conversion.
It got even better for the away side when stand-off Kevin Brown dummied his way over for a second try just two minutes after the restart following another handling error from Donald.
Hodgson's second goal made it 12-0 but the Rhinos began the fight-back on 46 minutes when centre Keith Senior offloaded from a two-man tackle to get the 18-year-old Watkins over in the corner for his first try.
Dangerous
Sinfield tagged on the goal and the champions began to look dangerous. Full-back Hodgson somehow managed to get a hand to Burrow's pass to ruin a two-man overlap and winger Hodgson intercepted 20 metres from his own line to bring another lively attack to an end.
The Huddersfield line was under almost constant siege but Leeds continued to fritter away chances.
Senior's pass to an unmarked Watkins went into touch, only the post denied Jamie Jones-Buchanan and Giants centre Jamahl Lolesi pulled off a last-ditch tackle to halt Burrow in sight of the line.
However, the pressure eventually told when prop Kylie Leuluai took Sinfield's short pass to crash over on 69 minutes.
Sinfield's conversion tied the scores and he put his side in front for the first time four minutes later with a 40-metre penalty after on-loan loose forward Lee Mossop was punished for holding down in the tackle.
As Huddersfield went all attack to try and regain the lead, Watkins intercepted Brett Hodgson's pass and won the sprint for the line to clinch victory.
