Peacock impresses on Rhinos debut

Great Britain captain Jamie Peacock made a tryscoring debut for Leeds as the Rhinos overcame a lively Harlequins 28-18 in front of a 4,029 crowd at Headingley Carnegie Stadium.

The Londoners threatened to ruin Peacock?s big day when they led 18-16 after an hour but full-strength Leeds scored two tries in the last 10 minutes to spare their blushes.

Peacock, the former Bradford skipper who made his first appearance for his new club at prop, had one try disallowed on 18 minutes for failing to ground the ball but made no mistake three minutes later when he took a short pass from hooker Matt Diskin to crash over.

Diskin and centre Keith Senior, playing his first match since the Tri-Nations series in November, also scored tries as the Rhinos built up a 16-6 lead.

But Quins, fresh from their 46-6 win over Catalans Dragons in their first warm-up game, hit back impressively to set up an exciting second half.

Winger Rikki Sheriffe, one of five new faces, finished off a sweeping move just before half-time, to add to Thomas Leuluai?s earlier solo try and keep the visitors in touch.

A midfield break from prop Karl Temata then got stand-off Luke Dorn over in the 48th minute and Quins went in front on the hour when skipper Mark McLinden produced a devastating turn of pace to score their fourth try.

Unfortunately for the London club, Mark Gafa was able to improve only one of the scores and the Rhinos finished strongly to claim the spoils.

Teenager Lee Smith, impressive at full-back as well as wing, finished decisively for the all-important try and second rower Willie Poching made sure of the win with a late score, with Kevin Sinfield kicking his fourth goal from five attempts.