Leeds Rhinos u19 66 Warrington Wolves u19 24.

A POOR second half proved costly as Wolves’ under 19s crashed to a heavy defeat against Leeds Rhinos at Headingley.

The lead changed hands several times in an evenly-matched first half, but the hosts stepped on the gas after the interval to send Lee Briers’ side to a disappointing defeat.

Wolves had made the perfect start as Ellis Gillam took advantage of an error from the kick-off to score after just twelve seconds.

Leeds equalised shortly after, but Harvey Livett stepped over to put Wolves back in front before two tries in eight minutes gave the Rhinos the lead for the first time.

Lewis Turner latched onto Declan Kay’s cut-out pass to score in the corner before a superb 90-metre effort from Jack Fox put Wolves ahead, but that would be the last time they troubled the scorers as Leeds ran in eight more tries to leave The Wire shellshocked.

After the game, Briers was critical of the performance but urged his side not to dwell on the disappointing reverse ahead of Sunday’s trip to face .

“The performance was not up to the standard that we expect; we started brightly and I really thought we had a great chance when we came in at half time but we never got going in the second half and Leeds took full advantage to gain a deserved win,” he said.

“We will not dwell on this, we’ll be back in training on Sunday morning and get ourselves prepared for the trip to London next Sunday where we will be looking to put things right.”

Wolves: Declan Kay; Lewis Turner, Jack Roper, Ellis Gillam, Jack Fox; Harvey Livett, Brad Stanway; Andy Philbin, Harry Reardon, Jordan Williams, Louis Wainwright, Matthew Kilgannon, Alex Whalley. Subs: Alex Tankard, Tom Pinder, Liam Aspin, Pat Moran.