They may have been soundly beaten and lost two key players to injury but Leeds coach Brian McDermott has no regrets about travelling to Melbourne for the World Club Challenge.
The Super League champions were completely outplayed by NRL premiers, with the Storm running in seven tries to one for a 38-4 victory at AAMI Park.
The Rhinos also lost lock Stevie Ward (calf) and fullback Jack Walker (knee) to first half injuries in their first trip to Australia for a WCC.
"I don't think Jack's going to be bad but his cartilage is torn and it's locked," McDermott said.
"He'll have that cleaned up so it might be a couple of weeks and Stevie has torn his calf."
The coach said his team knew they would have to gamble in attack to beat the Storm's defence, which he described as "awesome".
"It was always a challenge coming here and throwing something at Melbourne that would trouble them.
"Five drives and a kick wasn't going to be the go so we had to try something different but then we've got to strike a balance with it.
"When you use the ball more than you usually do you run the risk of making errors and the errors killed us a little bit in the first half, it gassed us out."
McDermott said his players would take a lot from the trip, and had learnt from the NRL's benchmark side.
"For sure we would do it again," he said.
"Give my team 10 games like that and by week eight or nine we would be up to that level.
"We'll learn some massive lessons from playing a game that's as intense as that and at that level."
Share
