Young hooker Robbie Ward was the hero for Leeds as they survived an almighty scare to beat second-tier Leigh 25-12 and book their place in the Challenge Cup semi-finals.
Leigh went into the contest on the back of a 16-match winning run in 2014 but were not expected to truly threaten a Rhinos outfit sat second in the Super League.
Leeds took an early lead on Friday through Ryan Hall but that did nothing to dampen Leigh's enthusiasm and they found themselves in front half an hour in courtesy of tries from Tom Spencer and Tom Armstrong.
A converted Stevie Ward try ensured the Rhinos went into the break level at 12-12 and things heated up after the restart when Jamie Peacock and Matt Sarsfield were involved in an altercation.
Leigh defied their part-time status to take the match into the final 10 minutes but were denied a famous win by Robbie Ward's close-range try and a last-gasp effort from Zak Hardaker - the fullback playing as he waits to find out the results of the RFL's findings into homophobic comments he made last week.
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