Has anyone adequately explained why Burrow kicked the penalty restart on the Wigan 40 at half-time straight off the pitch, rather than passing it to Sinfield for a bomb or a kickable dropgoal attempt?

Crazy decision - might as well have tried something to get more points.

Word was out that there was cake in the dressing room.

Leeds are having a brain-fart moment in most games so far this season and tonight must have been Burrow's turn.

I thought Sinny might have a pop from 60 metres where the orginal penalty was given.

Ambitious.

Two options there really, 1) Snap drop goal attempt from the tap or 2) huge hail mary up and under followed by the charge of the light (and heavy) brigade.

Of course keeping the ball in play opens the possibility of a counter attack from the opposition but come on you've got to chance it .... haven't you.

I was actually quite relieved when he put it in to touch. The way we carry out our last play of the half sometimes, the opposition are as likely to score as we are!

I thought this thread was going to be about Brian McDermott playing with an inflated rubber glove at half time rather than talking to his players. I guess I was wrong.

It must be inspiring being in the changing rooms with him...

Senior looked bemused as well when he did that.

It wasn't a rubber glove, fool, it was a banana.

At that point it appeared Burrow was the only one doing the talking and he soon gave up as well.

In that case it was a Banana with more than the normal compliment of fingers...

I was disappointed at the lack of discussion going on in the sheds at half time. During every match the coaching staff need to make sure the players concentrate on the gameplan and as evidenced by the last 15 minutes, we put the gameplan in the bin. Maybe if it had been reinforced at half time we would have hung on?

You've seen a snapshot of what goes on in the changing rooms of what? A minute? The half time break lasts for around 20 minutes nowadays, what do you want, a 20 minute presentation to the players? Tony Smith used to give them the first 5 minutes to do their own thing, without saying a word. IF McDermott is not putting in any input at half time and reinforcing the messages to the players that he thinks will make us win, he is an idiot. But he will be.

There are 17 players in the sheds with the coach, he needs to be telling them all what he expects. That's 1 minute with each player and 3 minutes with them as a whole, assuming your 20 minute comment is accurate.

Bit harsh! We only saw 30 seconds! Also we started the second half better than Wigan so our coaches half time talk was more effective than their guy's ranting.

What happened at the end of the game was down to a few players being too tired or lazy/not fit in defence. Some of our players thought we had already won when they went down to 12 men and stopped playing rugby.

First half set completion was 63%. With a stat like that you are not asking the opposition to do enough defending, and that should have been reinforced by the coaching staff at half time.

You are right JC we did only see 30 seconds, but it seems to me to be fairly reflective of the way that the coach interacts (or not) with the players. We failed to win this game due to our inability to work Wigan hard enough meaning they had gas in the tank long after ours went.

Bananas don't have fingers .... how dare you question Eddie Hemmings.

McDermott had nothing to address at half-time .... except for the 7 penalties conceded, 3 forward passes, 3 knock-ons, 1 crazy offload when the count had restarted and the now customary brain-fart moment.

Other than that everything was hunky dory.

Good, glad we agree.

At the time I was glad he did it... going for a drop goal or kick down field and ending up conceding a try before half time would have given them confidence and knocked ours.

Leeds had the option and used it in the most negative way imaginable. Not sure 'the skip' knew too much about it either.

The whole 'what we have we hold' approach ultimately came back to bite Leeds on the a[irs[/ie big time and eventually contributed to the dropping of a home point, not that I thought that was the wrong approach after going 18 points ahead. Grinding out the sets and ending with a good kick and chase should have closed the game out.

That it didn't work on this occasion was credit to Wigan generating speed around the play the ball (which Leeds couldn't get defensively set against) and some expansive play off the back of it.

Entertaining contest.

I hardly think coaches have a one to one with each player at half time.

Every coach has a different method at half-time, some work better than others. The fact is, we haven't a clue what goes on.

I honestly believe that Sinny didn't know the count had been reset (despite Wee Rob waving his fist in the air like some kind of idiot)

It's a negative attitude that was prevalent in the game and the season as a whole, instead of pushing your advantage you show the opposistion your afraid of them - going for 2 at wire earlier this season back fired, going for two at Wakey was just pathetic and going for 2 twice this week and wasting an attacking opportunity goes some of the way to costing us a point this week* - i always laugh if the opposition go for tow, it should inspire Leeds that the opposition dont think they can break us down

*of course other factors didnt help us, dirty Weegan, crap ref decisions and him stopping the clock for no reason cos Leeds are ahead (eg scrum with 25 to go, neither side set and both arms up, cf southstanders having to tell him to stop the clock v saints)

Are you suggesting that Mr Silverwood is biased against the Rhinos?
I wonder if tvoc can(will) tell us our record under him prior to last season's WCC & since then?

He must've see him surely!? The only thing I can think of is that he thought Rob was asking Silverwood for it, rather than signalling that we'd already been awarded it?

Ooh that sounds like fighting talk.



I'll have to think about it now.



__________

Richard Silverwood: Leeds All Games (All Comps)

Played 52, Won 34, Drawn 1, Lost 17, 66%

Up to and including WCC 2010:

Played 41, Won 29, Drawn 0, Lost 12, 71%

Post WCC 2010:

Played 11, Won 5, Drawn 1, Lost 5, 50%