LEEDS coach Brian McDermott was able to take the positives from his side's 34-0 defeat to Wigan.

Without 15 players through injury, McDermott gave debuts to three youngsters – including 17-year-old three-quarter Harry Newman, who made history by becoming the first player born this century to play in Super League – and had another three on the bench with just three league appearances between them.

Not surprisingly, the inexperienced visitors were no match for a near full-strength Wigan, whose victory would have been even more emphatic but for an off day with the boot by George Williams.

Yet McDermott believes his youngsters will benefit from the harsh lessons of Friday night and said: "They're experiences I can't give them in training.

"Mikolaj Oledzki (who has been on loan at Bradford) has never been hit like that before. There were some valuable lessons."

Leeds trailed only 14-0 at half-time but conceded four tries after the break, with centre Oliver Gildart touching down twice in five minutes and stand-off Williams also scoring a second try to make up for missing the target with four of his six conversion attempts.

McDermott said: "I can't tell you I'm happy but I'm not down either. On paper it was going to be a tough night and we had hoped the game would have been closer.

"We are disappointed by the final scoreline and disappointed we didn't score a try. But for large parts of the game we put up a fair amount of resistance against a very determined Wigan who were out to respond to their defeat last week.

"There were some good bits in there for us to feel proud of. The half-time score was a better reflection than 34-0. Once our juniors, and also to some extent our senior guys, started to fatigue, we conceded some soft tries."

McDermott insisted that all the 15 absentees were genuinely injured but hopes to have the bulk of them back for next weekend's Challenge Cup semi-final against Hull.

"Everybody thinks it's a master plan but we play a collision sport and everyone who didn't play was ruled out with concussion or something else," he said.

"I don't think any of them (apart from Keith Galloway) are in serious doubt for next week – but let's get through Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday first."