Leeds' formidable defence continued their tremendous form as a superb first-half showing from the Super League leaders added to the woes of beleaguered Hull coach Peter Sharp.

The world club champions were in imperious form as they restricted second-bottom Hull to just two attacks of note and posted three tries of their own in an eight-minute burst midway through the half.

They have now gone two-and-a-half games without having their try-line breached.

Both sides were able to welcome key men back from injury for the tie, with Ryan Bailey and Danny Maguire returning for Leeds and Richard Horne starting off the bench for Hull in his first appearance of the season.

Sharp lost Danny Houghton and Paul King over the weekend though, meaning eight of his squad were ruled out in total, and their frailties were apparent from the off as Leeds bossed the opening exchanges and ultimately the half.

The video referee denied Kevin Sinfield an eighth-minute opener after an obstruction in the build-up and it took some ferocious defence from Adam Dykes and Danny Tickle to deny Jamie Jones-Buchanan and Matt Diskin on separate occasions.

It did not take too much longer for Leeds to make a deserved breakthrough though, with Rob Burrow touching down with 12 minutes gone. Kevin Sinfield stood a deft kick up in the Hull in-goal area, Kirk Yeaman swung aimlessly at the ball and Burrow had the simplest task to score with Sinfield adding the extras.

An obstruction by Scott Donald then prevented Ali Lauitiiti from adding a further score a minute later as Leeds threatened to cut loose, with Sinfield capitalising on good work from Jamie Peacock to break free and feed the supporting Brent Webb for a second try.

A superb score from Lee Smith followed as the winger darted in after a delightful exchange between Gareth Ellis and Maguire and, with Sinfield converting for a third time, Hull were already looking dead and buried.

The introduction of Horne did harness the support of the dissenting crowd, but Hull were unable to make any impact before the hooter.