Hull Kr Vs Rhinos: Maika Sivo’s four-try blitz helps Leeds thrash champions in Las Vegas
Hull Kr Vs Rhinos produced a one-sided spectacle in Las Vegas as Leeds Rhinos ran out 56-8 winners, a result that immediately reshapes early Super League talk. The emphatic victory — delivered on a stage that drew 35, 500 tickets — matters because it left the reigning champions looking exposed days after their World Club Challenge triumph.
Hull Kr Vs Rhinos at Allegiant Stadium
The game took place at Allegiant Stadium, the home of NFL side the Las Vegas Raiders, in front of a sizeable crowd whose vocal Leeds and Hull KR followings dominated the atmosphere. Leeds scored 10 tries in total and led 28-0 at half-time, turning the contest into a rout by the interval and extinguishing any realistic hopes of a Robins comeback in the second half.
Maika Sivo’s four tries and recovery from injury
Maika Sivo finished with four tries and was the defining figure of the contest. He had missed the whole of 2025 after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament following his move to Leeds, but returned to produce a match-winning performance. Across his first two games of the year he has now scored six tries, combining a two-try debut display with the four in Las Vegas. Early in the contest he crossed twice to set the tone; later he completed a hat-trick and then a fourth score to seal his dominant afternoon.
Leeds try scorers, Jake Connor’s control and key sequences
Leeds’ try sheet read Sivo 4, Brodie Croft 2, Keenan Palasia, Ryan Hall and Cooper Jenkins 2, accounting for 10 touchdowns. Brodie Croft added a second-half score that extended the margin, while Connor pulled the strings from half-back, converting four of his five kicks and executing a 40/20 that created territory for a Croft try. One sequence saw Sivo collect the ball close to his own posts, surge downfield and help create the attack that ended with Ryan Hall touching down; that Hall score was reported as the 350th of his career. Cooper Jenkins finished with a late double that took the Rhinos beyond the 50-point mark on the scoreboard.
Hull KR’s recent high, subsequent fall and coaching response
Hull KR arrived in Nevada on the back of a World Club Challenge victory over the Brisbane Broncos only days earlier; one account placed that triumph 10 days before the Las Vegas fixture and another described it as occurring a week earlier. Whatever the exact timing, the Robins’ status as world champions did not translate into this match, leaving them still without a league win after two rounds. Head coach Willie Peters warned that the performance was nowhere near good enough, expressing sympathy for fans who had travelled and saying the squad needed to “action more than words” or face a difficult season. Peters’ concerns followed an earlier shock league defeat by newly promoted York, compounding the Robins’ early-season troubles.
Occasion, crowd and the wider implications
The Las Vegas event combined spectacle and rugby league theatre: 35, 500 tickets were sold for the takeover, and even Erasure frontman Andy Bell performed 'A Little Respect' before kick-off to warm up the Hull KR supporters. Joe Burgess scored a consolation try for Hull KR, but the 56-8 margin was the first time since 2023 the Robins had conceded so many points, and pundits pointed to this as the worst start to a season by defending champions in a decade. Leeds coach Brad Arthur described his players as having “had a ball” and praised their hunger, while the scale of the victory immediately repositioned Leeds as genuine contenders for silverware this season.
What makes this notable is Leeds’ capacity to dismantle the reigning champions on such a prominent stage; the Rhinos had won two of the three meetings between the clubs last year and now have delivered another emphatic statement. Hull KR head to Huddersfield next week still searching for a first league victory in 2026, leaving questions over how they recover from both the demands of their recent World Club Challenge exertions and the blunt reality check in Las Vegas.
