26 tackles, 9 misses, 3 errors from Walmsley. Ouch. Not what you'd want in an England side. Six misses each for Wilkin, Turner and Thompson.

33 tackles and 23 carries from Cuthbertson. Been a while since we've had a prop out-doing Peacock on the stats in terms of tackles and carries.

Singleton's number for marker tackles is ridiculous, suggests excellent lateral movement.

Saints are getting carried away with Walmsley. He's a fantastic prop who consistently gets us on the front foot. His success has meant that we now look to him all the time. 24 carries for him comparing with 12 for Amor and Savelio and 15 between Thompson, Richards and Masoe. He's being ran into the ground. Missed tackles are largely the result of this. His error count is due to this obsession they have with him developing his offloading game. In fairness, last night saw us chasing the game from 20 mins in and so no doubt we pushed the ball more than usual.

He's a fantastic prop forward who needs to be used properly. When you've Amor capable of doing the bulk of work, Walmsley should be used much more sparingly. I'd have no concerns of him in an England shirt, barring the fact that he'd quickly be in demand from the NRL.

Correct you don't win anything in April. But this season is very different with it being a big advantage to have a top spot and points, going into the super eights where you play every team once, and more so when only the top four in the play offs.

Yes again your coincidence theory is too simplistic.




Where is the biase? - I praised Aiton's performance and I did not praise Burrow's performance.

You miss the point. You say the interchange made a whole change in play and the team couldn't move forward etc etc. I do not agree. As I stated there were several factors that changed the momentum - other interchanges we made during the same period - interchanges the Saints made especially Walsh - errors crept into our game that were nothing to do with the hooker position - Saints started to offload and have more possession.

Also when Aiton was on for the first 33 minutes Saints made a lot of handling errors which gave us momentum and possession. In addition I would point out that all of our tries were scored by the backs coming from a mixture of individual skills of the backs and some good passing and offloads and this style of play was the same no matter who was at acting half back.

For example our first try was against the run of play and was an individual interception try by Handley. His second was from a superb Sutcliffe kick after a backs move. Hardaker's try came from an individual run from Sutcliffe. Maguire's try came from quick acting half back play by Sinfield to get Ablett away. Handley's 3rd try came from brilliant centre play from Moon. Sutcliffe's try came from his own good run after good hands from Sinfield. And Moon's try came after a Saints fumble. Many of these tries were long range and not from positions set up by the forwards due to either hooker.

So I am not saying that Aiton was not influential because I thought he played well, however the hooker interchange was not the main reason for the changes in momentum.

I agree with your comments. I too was worried about our right side defence as once Wash came on they created big overlaps on our right. There was a period when it looked like Ablett went back into the pack and Sutcliffe defended at right centre and I think Singleton might have got injured in the second half.

When Saints have the ball on their right hand side, they stack the left hand side with numbers and throw two long passes to move the ball quickly.

The full back comes in out there, the left sided second rower stands wider and they try to catch defences who have stacked in the middle to stop their big forwards. It forces middle defenders to work hard laterally to follow the ball across, or risk sliding out earlier then getting caught by either Walsh or Burns stepping back on the inside (see Turner's try from Walsh's break).

They'll cause a lot of teams problems doing that all season, it's one of their key attacking ploys.

BMD has always impressed me with how he handles himself, apart from perhaps the rant he had a couple if years back at Catalans. Tony Smith was very good Thursday night after a terrible run for Warrington.

Sutcliffe was playing right centre in the second half and defending next to Burrow who was being hidden out there while Sinfield played stand off but defended centrally. The composition of our right-side defence can't have helped when Saints shifted the ball left.

Not sure Burrow was being hidden he made some good and effective one on one tackles and only missed one. Sutcliffe missed 5 and Ablett missed 3. But as Andy Gilder has pointed out they have a deliberate and effective ploy to out number teams that side. I thought overall we coped well despite the injury disruptions.

Burrow did make some good tackles, but Burrow's tackles are always going to lead to quick play-the-ball. That's not his fault, they just are. Coupled with Sutcliffe in an unfamiliar position and at one stage Delaney seemingly on the wing (sometimes I think BMc is trying to institute an RL version of Ajax's Total Football) it was the obvious area for Saints to attack. That said...they didn't do too badly - all of Saints tries needed a favourable bounce of the ball and our goal-line defence was very good.

Sutcliffe and Ablett were struggling positionally in the 2nd half. But you have to watch the game properly to understand that. It's easier and lazier to assume that the problems were due to our change at hooker.

It's simplistic and patently wrong. Aiton returned for Burrow on 53 mins. It was 28 to 10 at that time. Saints dominance continued well after that switch and had everything to do with Saints attacking Leeds right edge and nothing to do with Aiton and Burrow. In fact, when Saints scored through Turner' 1st try of the 2nd half it was down to poor reads from Sutcliffe, Ablett and Achurch. Saints closed it to 28-16 8 minutes after Aiton replaced Burrow. It took some time after that for Leeds to weather the storm and edge further ahed through Sutcliffe's try.

Nothing changed at all when Aiton came back on for Burrow, though Aiton was superb throughout.

Another thought, McGuire wasn't that great on Friday, gave Moon a couple of awful balls, one of which could have gotten him killed.

I watched the game back and there was a lot of re-jigging and switching of players in defence. Burrow when came several minutes before HT, first defensive set he's on the right, rest of that half the left. 2nd half 1st set on the right, then left for the next one and then back over to right.....so the alternating sides must lead to some confusion when you can't be sure if Burrow is on your side or not this particular set.

At one point McGuire finds himself defending in the middle when he and a few others manage to hold Masoe up over the line. When Sinfield returns he defends next to Sutcliffe and Ablett is more left/central as Ward has departed from the pitch for the final 15mins.

Spot on G1 saints were always going to throw everything at us in those 20 minutes after half time we weathered the storm stopped making mistakes and got back into it. Thought RB did fine as usual, very hard to pick a mom so many did good stints , delaney showing a bit more form but Stevie Ward was again very very impressive if he keeps it up he should be a shoe in for England. I have been a bit unsure about Aiton but the fella is proving me wrong he was great and shores up the middle very well.
Just a mention for the coach he deserves big plaudits for his tactical game plan

I agree with this. Sutcliffe got smashed too by Turner off a dreadful hospital pass from someone (think Ablett??) and there was several other good strong hits by Saints in the 2nd that shouldn't be ignored as to why we didn't enjoy the same success in the 2nd half rather than throw too much blame at Burrow.

Had Walsh started the game would we have enjoyed such a strong 1st half......not imo.

Had Walsh not been available would Saints have come back into in the 2nd half.....not imo.

Had we kept Aiton on and left Burrow on the bench would Saints still have come back at us in that 2nd half.....yes imo.

Watch it back and errors kept into our play, Hardaker lost the ball (looked like a steal) and knocked on a high kick that put us under the cosh and all around I think we just tried to play the same way as the 1st half, but a step up from Saints didn't allow those keep the ball alive passes to work. Like you mention Aiton was on a while before we scored through Sutcliffe to kill it off and Saints heads dropped for the remainder.....and it wasn't because we suddenly improved play, it was either Cutbertson or Peacock who threw a speculator of an offload and Sinfield fortunately gets a toe to it and manages to scramble a pass away to Sutcliffe who skips through to score....so it wasn't on the back of some shifting of balance thanks to Aiton for Burrow at all.

With Watkins out of position and no Briscoe our right was the obvious place to attack. Saints were always going to have a period where they had some possession in the right part of the field to do that. What we did very well for most if the game was control the middle and we had very good and mobile defence on the edge - Aiton, Singleton, Ward and even JP made huge efforts to stop the ball moving quickly wide. We shut down a lot if Saints lateral ball movement by defending the edge of the middle zone energetically.
I guess you might argue that Aiton coming off made us slightly less effective at that, but we also for done parts of the second half had Singleton and Ward off.
I prefer hookers to be genuine forwards and defend close to the ruck, I'd also prefer Rob Burrow to not have to play hooker, but 7. However, he's just too good (still) to not be in the 17, so I guess this is the best working option.

I think Saints will get better with Walsh getting up to speed. They have a more powerful pack than for some years. It's their outside backs that look average, Lomax could help but otherwise they look very beige.

What most people have said,Saints were embarrassing in the first half as good as we were and a renewed effort and Walsh on the pitch was always going to mean we would be up against it for a period but we came through it and finished the game well.

As an aside i was very impressed with Jon Wilkins post game interview.He paid full credit to us for the job we did on them and also fully appreciated he wasnt a half back and was just trying his best to help out through the injuries and was exposed.Saints will certainly pick up with Walsh back in.

I think while Walmsley had a poor game by his usual standards, his stats for the year definitely justify him playing for England.

1699 metres compared to Cuthbertsons 1233, average gain of 7.58m compared to Cuthbertson's 5.84m, and 47 tackle busts compared to Cuthbertson's 19. Cuthbertson has made 348 tackles compared to Walmsley's 273, made 53 offloads to Walmsley's 29. Cuthbertson has made 9 errors compared to Walmsley's 14, but then gave away 7 penalties to Walmsley's 4. Cuthbertson has also missed 29 tackles compared to Walmsley's 24 (though this is probably due to making more tackles)

The two of them along with James Graham, George Burgess and Chris Hill would be a very strong prop rotation for England!

Really impressed with Sutcliffe on Friday, looks like your replacement for Sinfield is already sorted. His vision and decision making for his age is very impressive. If you manage to sign Widdop too your backline will be ridiculous.

Singleton, I think?

Horrible, looping pass when we were playing Harlem Globetrotters in the second half.

Indeed. I thought he did very well to keep his focus on holding the ball. Utterly defenceless against the hit, which arrived at pretty much the same time as the ball did.

It was a nice hit though. Shows that you can smash an opponent without resorting to shoulder charges.

Mose Mosoe's game stats make very interesting reading.

Ian Kirke would be proud of those stats

One small incident that made Sutcliffe stand out as a class act was how he took the pass for his try. It was a poor pass that he stuck out his right hand for & just let the ball float onto to it without seemingly watching the ball; no desperate grabbing, no change in cadence.

Then again, look at Mitch Achurch.

In his first stint, he didn't touch the ball. neither did any saints player either!