‘My best season,’ says Leeds Rhinos’ Alex Sutcliffe despite Catalans defeat

The utility player spent most of last year on dual-registration with Featherstone Rovers and was not expecting too much involvement with Leeds in 2020.

However, Friday’s 26-14 elimination play-off defeat against Catalans Dragons was his ninth game of the year for Richard Agar’s side with one of the others being an appearance in the Challenge Cup final win over Salford Red Devils.

Sutcliffe, 21, said: “I’ve 100 per cent achieved more than I thought I would this season.

“I thought I might get a game here or there maybe but I’m quite proud of what I’ve done this year.

“Personally, it’s been the best season of rugby I’ve had obviously winning the Challenge Cup final and getting so many Super League minutes under my belt.

“Coming back when the lockdown break was over, I’d have never thought I’d get the chance to play in a Challenge Cup final especially after not being picked for the quarter-final or semi.

“I never thought I’d play at Wembley so that is my highlight.”

Obviously, Leeds have missed the chance to press on and attempt a double, having been over-powered by their French opponents at Halliwell Jones Stadium.

Catalans were 18-0 up by the half-hour and, though Sutcliffe responded with his first try for the club before the break and Liam Sutcliffe made it 18-10 early in the second period, they were unable to claw that deficit back.

The Wakefield-born back-row conceded: “We left ourselves too much to do chasing the game like we had to. It didn’t help that we lost both our starting front-rowers (Ava Seumanufagai and Mikolaj Oledzki to HIAs) so we only had two substitutions that we could use.

“But we did leave ourselves too much to do in the end.”

Catalans had played only once in five weeks but looked razor-sharp early on.

Sutcliffe insisted: “They didn’t take us by surprise. We knew they were going to come and try and put a number on us.

“It’s finals football isn’t it? You can’t be surprised at how teams are going to be. We knew they’d come out firing and they did.”

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