Leeds coach Brian McDermott is remaining loyal to his players despite suffering one of the worst losses of his coaching career as the Super League champions' crashed to a 52-12 home defeat to Castleford.
A week after being bundled out of the Challenge Cup at the first hurdle, the Rhinos remained rooted to the foot of the league table after conceding nine tries in their heaviest home defeat of the season.
"It was a terrible scoreline, defensively we were terrible," said McDermott, who reflected on arguably the worst defeat in his six seasons at the helm.
"I'm hesitant to say too much until I've reviewed it but it will be up there.
"There are positives and it probably won't wash with many people but I see a really spirited group of people who are maybe trying too much."
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Leeds made the best possible start with Mitch Garbutt scoring his first try of the season to give them a fifth-minute lead, but they conceded five tries before halftime to trail 30-6 at the break.
Their fragile defence cracked twice more within five minutes of the restart.
"We've got a list of things that we need to get on top of and in recent weeks the number one is soft missed tackles," McDermott said.
"Castleford got out of their end far too easily with soft misses and soft positional errors which gave them a break.
"I'll back the players to come up with something. I'm not going to be critical of them. I don't think anybody is not trying."
Castleford coach Daryl Powell, a former player and head coach of the Rhinos, had some sympathy for the plight of his old club.
"You don't expect to get away from Leeds like that, although we thought there was a score in us if things click," he said.
