SPIRITED Saints came so near to pricking the Leeds bubble on Friday night in a game that ultimatelycame down to a couple of dropped balls and two questionable decisions from the match officials.

You make your own luck, but two pivotal decisions in the game went against Saints, which contributed massively to the defeat.

The first came after Saints had pegged the scores back to 18-all to silence the Leeds' fans in the sell-out 21,225 crowd.

Five minutes before half time Sean Long broke through and was just about overhauled by the Leeds cover, who decked him but never planted their hands upon him to complete the tackle.

Referee Ashley Klein, however, prematurely called held so when Long regained his feet and played on he was penalised with the Leeds line begging.

The second came four minutes after the restart when half back Danny McGuire hoofed a long kick from just outside the 40 metre zone, yet was bizarrely awarded the head and feed from the 40/20 decision reached by the video referee.

Inevitably, with bodies tiring from another repeat set, Leeds' under-rated substitute Willie Poching got his hands to McGuire's grubber to touch down to give the World Club Champions a lead they would never lose.

A late score from Mark Calderwood - which came from Saints' inability to deal with another kick gave the scoreline an even more flattering look for the Loiners.

To be fair to Leeds, they tackled like Trojans in that second half in the face of everything Saints threw at them, particularly in the middle 20 minutes of the second half.

Skipper Paul Sculthorpe worked mightily hard and was head and shoulders above anybody else on the field.

However, Saints lacked that little bit of creative genius in the middle to complement him and at times they seemingly did not know how to complete the set.

With no way through the stubborn defence, Saints had a tendency to put in nothing kicks down the throat of the full back or worse a collection of daft flick passes which more often than not hit the deck.

You could understand why they were doing it - particularly Jamie Lyon, who realised they had to do something special to crack this Leeds defence.

But a more patient approach and a more thoughtful boot might have been more productive in keeping Leeds on the rack.

There were a few chinks of light in the Leeds defence - a number of times, when the ball went through hands, gaps were worked on both flanks only for the ball to hit the deck or go into touch.

Still it was a game of positives, although for a few fearful moments it looked as though history was about to repeat itself as Leeds romped to a 12-0 lead after as many minutes with tries from Calderwood and Chev Walker. The spoiled Leeds fans sat back and anticipated another 70 point drubbing against a side that had only arrived 40 minutes before kick off and had to leave out flu victim Paul Wellens.

But a try from Darren Albert, after Sculthorpe had sent the impressive Ian Hardman storming downfield, put Saints back in it. Then Keiron Cunningham bulldozed over from a yard out to level it.

Richie Mathers and Wille Talau exchanged scores to set up a gripping second half which had everyone transfixed.

It is just a pity that after such a thriller, the main talking points should again be about the officials.

Line-ups

Leeds: Mathers; Calderwood, Walker, Senior, Bai; Sinfield, McGuire; Bailey, Dunemann, Ward, Jones-Buchanan, McKenna, Ellis. Subs: Burrow, McDonald, Poching, Lauititi.

Saints: Hardman; Albert, Lyon, Talau, Gardner; Sculthorpe, Long; Fozzard, Higham, Anderson, Graham, Gilmour, Wilkin. Subs: Bennett, Edmondson, Cunningham, Roby.

Ref: A. Klein (London)