Mcguire out for 1-2 months. Not good but hope Lilley gets a run at halfback.

Called it.

We had 6 first team players out, were light up front, and were also playing our first league game with no less than 6 debutants. So comments that we "looked average" or "were nothing special" are a little strange..

Anyway, that Leeds performance reminded me of us in 2014 and 2015; get to the opposition 20, have loads of possession and chances, but just can't finish. Our reason was the lack of quality at halfback, what's yours?

Well that night we played 4 halves: one coming back from injury, one going off with injury, one 19 and mainly playing at dummy half, the other has played hooker for the past 4 and a half years so...

Given it was the first game without the Sinfield / peacock influence ,that we lost Mags early and had an injured halfback we didn't do too bad. Also consider the first try wwas worth a look at for obstruction .

Warrington played well and snowing the PTB was a great tactic for them.
We seemed to stop supporting/ offloading and get drawn into bashing it up the middle,without the ability to get a quick pass out ride for the centres to take advantage of any overlap.

The Burrow stopping/ taking the tackle and the dropped ball in good position (was it Sutty?) Were very unlucky and won't happen too often.
Same with the bad goal kick from Zak.

I thought you clunge on for dear life and your scramble saved you. I thought we were unlucky not to get the win. Taking nothing away from your win which was born out of effort, a bit of luck for the obstruction try and individual brilliance to win you the game. (Which I called)

If we have that much territory and ball this season we will win a lot more than we loose.

As I've said I thought you were lucky to get the win, i totally acknowledge you made your own luck and you found a way to win a game where you were run ragged at times and the stats totally back that up.

That's more respect to Wire for doing that.

Has anyone mentioned goal kicking might have been the difference?

Whilst at the game i thought attack wise we still looked in pre-season and a couple of weeks away from being ready having watched it again on T.v my view hasn't changed.
Losing Mags was a big blow especially as Sutty was playing on 1 leg from the 14th minute after the bombed try.
It seems 50/50 split re-Burrows break in the 2nd half it happened right in front of us and imo he'd have just made it or got tackled short and Hall would have had a walk in from dummy half either way i think he got it wrong hitting the breaks.
Also whilst on about the little Dynamo far too often he hit the lead runner in possession or stepped and went the wrong way losing the ball on one occasion when the call was clearly to come right to Ferres/Watkins.
Lilley again looked the real deal but imo he's a better 7 than he is a 9 and controls play better there than RB.
Plenty of positives Galloway was much better ,Ferres was my M.O.M and Singo got stuck right in.
The GK issue i've covered on the rellevant thread and as for Mr Child once again our great sport is getting held back by inept officials who go along consistently being awful to average without repurcussions or more importantly improvement.
Loads we need to improve on and more importantly 1 or 2 positional tweaks are needed imo but at least a lot is fixable rustiness and not lack of quality/talent.
On the Leadership front it will take time but there was enough experience on that pitch to have taken better control and brought a calmness but it didn't happen.

Agree with that Rhinoms.
I'm not too worried. I thought there were times we were starting to look good with Cuthbertson getting some offloads away we just didn't do enough of it.
Sutcliffe was obviously struggling and losing McGuire was a blow. Had he been on I reckon we'd have sneaked a win.
Pleased with Ferres and Galloway.
Unfortunately Burrow, whilst trying hard as always, wasn't particularly effective at anything really.
We appeared to lack direction when McGuire was off. Often we were going sideways when we needed to straighten up and vice-versa, plus our last tackle was generally poor and rushed.
Moon looked very dangerous as did Watkins on the very few occasions he got the ball.

All of this though shouldn't lead to the referee's terrible performance being overlooked. He was utterly terrible. He didn't referee that game, he just let it happen. The holding down and offside rule was consistently ignored by him and the forward pass and high tackle rule applied schizophrenicly. But the crowning turd in the water-pipe was Wire's first try. An obstruction occurred directly in front of him. It should've gone to the video ref. To not send that up to the VR simply isn't good enough. Child is developing a pattern, his games involve an awful lot of holding down and offsides. Be prepared for most of the skill to be taken out of the games he refs thanks to his allowing holding down and offsides. It becomes more of a lottery with him reffing.

Now before any Wire fans get all worked up, I'm not complaining at the result, Wire's hard work and determination kept us out, I'm merely depressed/annoyed that at the very start of the new season the exact same refereeing problems are so starkly evident. Hopefully the other refs have improved otherwise it's going to be another season filled with slow play the balls and dodgy obstruction calls.

Like I said on the Wire board, it looked like a blatant obstruction.

I don't have a problem with it been a try, what I will have a problem with is the next dozen been sent upstairs and chalked off for the same or less infringement.

This is the issue for me too. You just know we are in for another long season of lottery decisions on obstruction.

Child may have had a bad game but that does not alter the fact that we had enough possession & field position to win that game twice over.
I'm sure that McDermott will not blame the ref for the result.
We need to concentrate on what we can control, not look for excuses elsewhere.

We should send for the Wigan ground staff ,apparently they have considerable expertise in preparing first class playing areas.

Absolutely....but again I can't see anybody making 'excuses elswhere' but simply making observations of the game ...including the poor refereeing which is subject to so much subjectivity and inconsistency of applying the 'rules'

We all knew Leeds were going to miss the 2 icons, but many felt confident that Leeds will still perform well this season, if not (understandably) quite reaching the heights of last season. I still believe that - subject to injuries of course (and already the ominous signs are there with the lengthy loss of Danny).

I like to think this season will be the making of Lilley (what a "find" he has been - he looks a natural and already worthy of a starting half back position: hope he gets that start against Widnes), Golding and Handley. Difficult to see yet who Golding and Handley will displace, but sadly as we have already seen with McGuire those opportunities might materialise rather sooner than anybody might have reasonably planned. Undoubtedly they are - like Lilley - both ready for SL.

Quite correct, it will be several weeks before we discover the real Leeds. Its early days but you look good. Your aggressive defence impressed me, add latchford to the squad and you could potentially be in the running for some silverware.

Bob Latchford? Didn't he play for Everton in the 70's - can't see him adding much but probably still more than Bailey will.

If Child was poor I think we're going to have to find some new words for when a referee doesn't go 7-0 in Leeds' favour second half and 11 - 5 over the full eighty.

Thaler fared worse IMO (although better man manager) - sent a dead set try up as a no try to be rightly overturned and had an excellent performance from his touch judge to save several other potential blushes - although again in his favour he quite correctly listened to and followed the advice he was given.

You get two for the price of one with my posting!! A footballer and a rugby player .

burrow 2 or 3 years ago would of flew in..he,ll a big loss to leeds when he retires as will child

He might "have flown" in too

.... IMO he hasn't lost that pace. He lost his bottle (atypical of a usually fearless player)

As for Child...you must be joking. We have Hardaker in our team: he is never going to forgive us that.

Currie had the angle on burrow and IMHO Burrow did the right thing - kept possession near their line against a broken defence. We were not good enough on next play to stretch wire to the other side and score.

Give over. Watch the replay.

I don't buy the argument that Leeds were unlucky not to win. It was a tight game that could have gone either way. Had the Rhinos won by 2 points Warrington fans could make the same argument.

No! Really!

A Wire fan with an unbalanced view? Get the f*ck outa town.

Field position & possession says if you do that on a regular basis your gonna get more than a few batterings.

Great effort and scramble by wire plus a pretty dodgy try and a piece of individual brilliance got you the win. Fair play to Wire. That's how it goes sometimes. You made your own luck.

What I take as a Rhino is if we dominate teams like we did on Thursday we will win a lot more than we lose.

:1cl1ehea

Sorry, I'll try and not be so unbalanced with my comments next time

Thanks for the welcome by the way.

:1cl1ehea

It's called good defence - or does that not count? Also we're only talking about one game here so this point is irrelevant. Wire may not defend that well every week but I'm sure they won't gift that much possession every week either. They defended well when they needed too.

:1cl1ehea

Well you can call anything luck if you just define luck as the thing you want to call luck.



What I take as a Wire is if we defend like we did on Thursday we will win a lot more than we lose. Same argument.