HEAD coach Neil Jukes accused his side of lacking quality after his Super League outfit was dumped out of the Ladbrokes Challenge Cup by Championship leaders, Hull KR.

Seven months after beating Rovers in the Middle 8’s en route to achieving top flight status, Centurions had the tables turned on them.

Despite recovering from a 10-0 early deficit to level at 10-all, Leigh couldn’t avoid falling at the same hurdle to lower league opposition for a second successive season.

But this hurt more to Jukes than last year’s fifth round demise in Toulouse.

“I don’ like hammering the guys in public but there is not enough quality from some players,” he said. “Not enough quality and right decisions at the right time.

“But there are seven or eight guys not playing who would be in your 17, if not in your starting 13, and that does affect you.

“Some people look like they are shot with confidence; people who we have brought through and been part with me in losing three games in three years. Hull KR smelled blood and came for our throats.”

Leigh have now lost six consecutive games since beating Warrington 22-8 on March 16 and ahead of tomorrow’s trip to St Helens.

Injuries to key players including skipper Micky Higham, Gareth Hock and Mitch Brown didn’t help Centurions’ cause.

But as Jukes suggested the Super Leaguers should have had sufficient strength in depth to overcome visitors also missing pivotal players like Danny Addy, James Donaldson and Ben Cockayne.

Instead, the Robins found early fluency with Ryan Shaw and George Lawler crossing inside eight minutes and ex Leyther, Jamie Ellis, landing one conversion.

Leigh responded well to tie the scores through Lachlan Burr and Curtis Naughton plus a Ben Reynolds goal.

It looked likely to be 10-all at half-time only for the outstanding Jordan Abdull to set-up James Greenwood to cross for a converted touch down after 38 minutes.

Leigh should have hit back in the final quarter but Josh Drinkwater’s careless pass to Curtis Naughton after 68 minutes was correctly ruled forward and Rovers survived.

It proved pivotal as Ellis’s 71st minute drop goal left Leigh two scores in arrears before Shaw scooted through in the closing stages for his second and match clinching try.

Match stats: Leigh; Ridyard; Hampshire, Crooks, Dawson, Naughton; Reynolds, Drinkwater; Acton, Hood, Weston, Vea, Stewart, Hansen; substitutes: Pelissier, Tickle, Hopkins, Burr.

Tries: Burr (19), Naughton (22)

Goals: Reynolds (1)

Hull KR: Quinlan; Shaw, Heffernan, Salter, Hodgson; Abdull, Ellis; Scruton, Lunt, Johnson, Lawler, Blair, Kavanagh; substitutes: Greenwood, Dockar-Clay, Mulhern, Wardill.

Tries: Shaw (2, 77), Lawler (8), Greenwood (38)

Goals: Ellis (3)

Drop goal: Ellis

Half-time: Leigh 10 Hull KR 16

Referee: James Child

Attendance: 3,818.