Leeds 72-10 Barrow: Challenge Cup report & reaction

Match stats: Leeds 72-10 Barrow

Leeds tries: Moon (4, 18, 36), Parcell (7, 74), Handley (13, 46), Hall (39), Ward (50), Sutcliffe (60), Burrow (65, 72), Galloway (78)
Conversions: Sutcliffe (4, 7, 18, 39, 46, 50, 15, 72, 75, 78) 

Barrow tries: Cresswell (22), Stack (70)
Conversions: Ashall (70) 

Match report

Joel Moon grabbed a first-half hat-trick as Leeds eased into the quarter-finals of the Ladbrokes Challenge Cup with a 72-10 win over competition minnows Barrow.

The Betfred Super League giants virtually assured their place in the last eight draw with four tries in the opening 17 minutes and went on to score 13 against their Kingstone Press League One opponents.

Moon's treble was supplemented by tries from Matt Parcell, Ash Handley and Ryan Hall before half-time, while Barrow's sole and much celebrated first-half reply came through winger Luke Cresswell.

Handley, Stevie Ward, Liam Sutcliffe, Robbie Burrow (two), Parcell and Galloway added further tries after the break, while Sutcliffe added 10 successful conversions.

Jarrad Stack crossed for the Raiders in the second half and Karl Ashall's goal took them into double figures.

Click here for full Challenge Cup quarter-final draw

Click here for full Challenge Cup sixth-round review 

It was 60 years, almost to the day, since the Yorkshire side had edged the 1957 final 9-7 at Wembley but drastically different fortunes in the intervening years meant another close enounter was always highly

Barrow began round six as the lowest ranked side in the competition but had won each of their last 13 games.

The Barrow coach was held up in traffic, which forced the start to be put back to 3.10pm at Headingley.

The Rhinos class shone through early as Moon skipped easily in between the visitor's defence to score in the third minute.

Leeds were soon on the scoreboard again as Tom Briscoe broke down the right-hand touchline before sending Parcell behind the posts to score again.

Handley added a third try in the corner and after Brett Ferres, back following a six-match suspension, spilt the crucial pass when a fourth looked likely, Moon exchanged passed with Sutcliffe to give his side a 22-0 lead.

The biggest cheer of the afternoon, led by around 1,000 travelling Raiders fans, was reserved for Cresswell when he dived over in the right corner after being put in the clear by Ryan Fieldhouse's long pass to open Barrow's account.

But despite the sin-binning of Keith Galloway for an off-the ball challenge on Karl Ashall, Moon soon claimed his hat-trick and 13th try of the season.

Hall, returning from England international duty, then ran out of defence to score a thrilling length of the field touchdown two minutes before the break.

Danny McGuire dummied through and put Handley in for his second score early in the second half before Moon turned creator for Ward to race through and touch down.

Sutcliffe then touched down while Burrow's two tries sandwiched efforts from Parcel and Galloway as the part-timers tired.

But their fans did have something else to cheer as a Jarrad Stack try and fine Ashall goal from the touchline gave Barrow late consolation, and their attention now turns to next week's trip to Canada to face Toronto.

Match reaction

Brian McDermott on Leeds' next opponents Featherstone after seeing off Barrow: "I don't feel bad about drawing a Championship team as for years we just couldn't seem to get away from Super League opposition," said McDermott, who has been in charge of the Rhinos since 2011.

"Since I've been here, we've been to Wembley four times and I think we have only not drawn Super League opposition once - and that was Leigh and they nearly beat us.

"Featherstone are a good team. They will be pushing for top four come the 'Middle Eights' and I'm sure they will be pushing for Super League status, so we'll pay them a fair amount of respect.

"We didn't do a good enough job against Doncaster in a similar situation a couple of weeks ago (in round five) when they ended up having a much better second half than we did, so to follow through and finish it off today and score 72 points is pleasing.

"There were some issues with ball security but we won't focus on that. We didn't come out with any injuries. Tom Briscoe came off with a twisted knee and Danny McGuire got a tight quad but nothing sinister.

"Once you've made it extremely unlikely that you are going to lose the game, the next thing is to ensure that you stay injury free.

"Some of the tries we scored were top drawer but, being respectful to Barrow, I don't think we'll be able to do that against Super League teams.

"If they start waving the ball about like that against Super League opposition they will hurt us, so we have to manage that right."

Barrow coach Paul Crarey on his side's display: "We were never going to win the game - it was about us getting to this point and putting on a bit of a show. We scored a couple of tries and could have had a couple more but probably our game management let us down.

"We spoke about game management at half-time and then went out and kicked the restart out on the full. Having said that it was our third game in a week and for the last 30 minutes we had one sub so we knew the end of the game was going to be a real killer for us. When we were 50 points down I think we were happy and the blow-up at the end was probably down to fatigue."