www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/s ... _1_3299472

www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/s ... _1_3299472

"We cant fall any lower"?

I think we can if we get beat thursday!!!!!

Getting beat on Thursday would be the lowest point of this century so far. Even when times have been good we have still lost to lower quality sides the odd time. But losing to that shower ofe on Thursday really will be an embarrassment of biblical proportions.

At least someone has a way forward - pity it isn't the coach!!

“It is a tough one. It is going to come down to repetition. Defence is going to be how we get out of it.

“We just need to keep working hard in that area.”

Didn't the coach say in pre season that he wasn't concerned about defence?

He did but he also seaid that he had got the players to play with the ball in hand earlier this year. That hasnt worked out well either!!!

Maybe he took the view if score more than the opposition we will win - problem is when you are conceding 30 points a game it is difficult to find the time to score due to the amount of time stood waiting for the conversion.

They keep saying that everything works well in training - could that be that they don't have any true opposition in training????

A bit like mike Bassett football manager when they train without the ball?

lets face it though you havent hired a coach of high standards, you need a replacement to turn your season around. you can by all means still win silverware but not with scooby dumb as head coach

As we've now shipped in more points than we have scored, Einstein was not needed to highlight our failures in defence



I hope he's right, and our season may just start this Thursday with a few of the plays actually coming off, but it will require all 17 to put in a decent shift.

Interestingly, he calls for leadership. Although we appear to still have a gobby giveaway penalty attitude, I didn't think Sinny was particularly lacking in that department.

Maybe we should make Buderus captain. After all, Sinfield is used to leading a team of perennial challengers. Buderus, it would seem, has some real experience of being a loser at club level .

Could be an idea - he has captain two of the best sides in RL - in Australia and NSW?

Garry Schofield certainly had no issues when he lost the club captaincy to Ellery Hanley.

I wouldn't advocate giving a player captaincy unless he is going to be on the pitch for 80 minutes. I know other clubs do, I personally wouldn't. I realise this limits the role to certain positions.

I think Kev is affected playing at stand-off - he is obviously having to do a lot more work. I know he is used to playing a play-maker role, but he is having to do all of it rather than his usual role share with Danny.

In addition to this, I think JP used to assist in the captaincy, perhaps in areas where Kev was/is lacking, hiding these deficiencies.

I know both of them returning wont solve all our problems, and perhaps we should be looking for another player to step up to these missed roles in the mean time, but as it stands, nobody is.

I don't think he is affected, but as I stated before the season started and a few times since, I think the team is affected.

The team play much better with Sinfield at loose, simple as that. He is the best defender in the side when in that position and he holds the defence together. Out of it the structure falls apart.

I know he is the best option (and in reality only credible option) to play at stand off, but the club should have used preseason to try and come up with another formula. Another failing from the club.

IMO Webb should have been there with Sinfield at loose, just to make sure the team worked better.

A policy which would have been scrapped anyway following the injuries to Jones-Bishop and Smith making Webb the only viable option to play full-back.

That's before you get into whether Webb's passing is of the required standard to play in the halves.

Which still brings us back to where Sinfield is best. And I maintain what I put. The team is a far better side with Sinfield at 13, certainly from a defensive point of view.

Injuries to Jones-Bishop and Smith could have been covered from the academy if needbe.

Of course all hindsight. But I am 100% convinced that this side will defend much better when DM is back at Stand off, and we can hardly call him a definsive lynchpin.

Can't disagree with that about Kev. Think Webb would be out of his depth though. Full-back is hard enough for him. On Friday, nearly every single kick that went up, wherever it landed on the field Webb was nowhere near - too far forward on the 5th, over on the wing stood next to Hall or Watkins. The wingers were coming into the middle to take the high kicks. At one point Delany was covering for where Webb should have been!

IMO he's Leeds' most potent threat on distribution in the danger zone. His understanding and timing of the balls he swings out to un-pick the defence is high quality.

Not disagreeing with you at all regarding defensive structure. Having one of your better defenders standing outside the right centre is a waste - he'd be better defending in the middle then everyone on the right hand side sliding out one.

Wherever Sinfield defends though, his role in attack hasn't changed fundamentally this season. He's just having to do much more of it in the absence of McGuire and Burrow's continued attempts to try and run up his own backside.

Kevin Sinfield Games Tackles T/Game Marker Tackles MT/Game

2009 24 758 31.6 109 4.5

2010 21 587 28 92 4.4

2011 10 187 18.7 26 2.6

Still gets beaten to the outside too much.

The 2011 drop off in tackles per game would fit in with defending two spots further out.

So he's making much fewer tackles and missing a much larger proportion of them?

Sorry, MT/Game meant marker tackles per game, an area where Leeds are being exposed.