That is a good point, not every try finished by a winger is necessarily the result of good centre play. All four winger's tries tonight owed nothing to their centre's service out wide.

You really don't like Gaz Hock you blokes do you ?

Cos he stood up to JP perchance ?

Well done on the win tonight you guys deserved it. Your tactics were spot on, you took Gareth Hock out of the game, kept Sam Tomkins quiet and stopped us playing like we did against Bradford.

Also good luck next week

'Coventry warrior' stop being so patronising to them.

Credit where its due

That's the best I've seen us play all season. We were unstoppable for the first 20 minutes. Even when we were in our own 20 I got the feeling we could score off that set.

For me, Ablett was immense. Mcguire, Burrow and Smith pushed him close but he really stood out for me. He broke the line several times and showed Hock (brilliant last week, poor last night) what it's all about. Top performance.

Gibson looks a bit small but was very busy in defence. He threw himself around quite a bit actually, but I think he needs to get a bit bigger. Carmont didn't show up either.

Ainscough was by far Wigan's most dangerous player. Every time he cut back in he looked pretty useful. He looks very strong - did you see him swat Donald?

Good too see Webby back. I'm a bit concerned about Kirke (another standout before he went off) and Ali.

No... it's because he's a knob.

My overview (for what it's worth):

Best opening 30 minutes all season. Blew Wigan away. Great tempo and desire to play with the ball. If we stick to playing rugby rather than getting sucked in to slugging, we make our job much easier.

Nobbie trys to win the ruck and slow us down, that's been the key to his success over Leeds. So Leeds had to win the ruck and PTB as quick as they could. Slotting Burrow there for the opening quarter helped achieve this. And Ryan Bailey PTB quicker than anyone out there. You could see Bluey has been working on this through the week.

Dodgy end to the first half and the start of the second. Wigan had 2 scores rightfully chalked off, but Leeds were also lucky, with Donald letting the ball bounce. Never let it bounce!!! Donald had a intersting dual with young Ainscough, with the Wiganer probably winning it on points. But his mis-kick allowed Donald to score a, technically, quality finish.

After these moments of panic, we just needed to show composure and complete a set, on the last play, at half way, Sinfield shifted the ball to Burrow, he shifted it futher left, which resulted in a panic kick. We were playing as if we were chasing the game. The message must have got out, the following set saw Burrow put a lovely touch finder into the South-West corner on the 10m line and composure and the game was restored.

Personal mentions:

Kylie - world class finish for the opener. Great line of run and was an impossible task to stop from there.

Hall - Great finishes. Very powerful runner.

Gibson/Watkins - handling errors from both, part of the learning curve. Gibson looks the more solid at this stage.

McGuire/Burrow/Ali - always a handful.

Sinfield - star of the show. World class. Definitley got a yard of pace extra. Superb leader of men.

Kirke/JJB/Ablett - all equally as good tonight. Kirke another huge break. Really running with purpose. Runs like JP, vastly improving week after weak. I've always championed the benefit of Kirke, and I've yet to be proved wrong....because it won't happen.

Bailey/Burgees - both solid, made the yards.

JP - awesome. Always carting the ball forward, no more than the last play of the first half, we were well under the cosh, and with the last drive he made a hefty 10m drive. More than we had made in the previous 3 plays. Always there when needed.

Finally.....Superman - great to see him back, having a run out. It was nothing more than that. Obvious weight loss, as expected. But deserved the reception.



Other than that, twp 40-20's and Leeds killed the game before Nobbie could make 100 chews of his chuddie.

As for Wigan, simply poor. Leeds blew them away, but the resistance was minor. Another wake up call for the pie-eaters. Individually, young Ainscough looks a prospect. Was Fielden playing?? They need to get shot of that soft lump, useless. Hock littered with mistakes, he had his once in a blue moon game last week, failed last night. But was willing to keep trying, when many Wigan players weren't. Amos Roberts looked pathetic. Hall's gamebreaker barely saw Roberts lift one foot off the ground. If he didn't think he'd make the catch he should have swatted the ball to safety. Lazy effort.

5 out of 5. Better performance, good run out. Sets up nicely to the fixture next week.

Nice summary BB.

I was impressed by the energy, especially in first 20-30 mins, and how they rose to the challenge of playing without a hooker. Young players seem to be improving week on week. Discipline seemed to be pretty good this week too and we look better for not getting drawn into a brawl. We need to come out for the start of the second half wide awake and switched on.
I just feel so proud of our academy products.

Is he?

Did you see what he did with his man of the match prize last week?

That's very true. A better side would have made Leeds pay for swithing off. I suppose it's a mental thing. Previous games have been tight and we've had to fight tooth and nail, where-as this was virtually over at half-time. So mentally they may have slipped down a gear or two. This is what I was hinting at with Peacock (last drive of the first half), he still does the job, all the time!

But it give us something to work on, and gives us focus to improve in games. It's a long season, we are no-where near peaking, we have players to establish themesleves in the team, and we need to kick-on. But, so far so good. The Saints game is crucial. We win we have a 4 point gap (which 6 games in would be classed as very considerable), or we lose and the 'top 2' go neck and neck. Even if we win, and go 4 points infront of our most obvious contenders, it's nothing to get carried away with (re: last seasons 6 point lead). But it gives us a strong platfom to build on.

Did he repeatedly drop it and then have a pathetic look of disbelief on emaciated face?

If he had would that make him a knob?

Why is he as knob?

Because he looks like one.

[size=42I'm not playing with you today Danny mate so you aint gunna get a straight answer.[/size

Well lets just say I dont class a knob as someone who when given a man of the match prize goes straight over and gives it to a disabled supporter.

Your powers of observation astound me. Thats a joke, btw, before you get all macho. It was to Hall, Watkins presence in the cenrte drawing the defender



Did I not make that point yesterday? Tie up your cap space in 1,6,7,9 and 13 - add some decent props and you're there. Don't waste big money on centres.

Did anyone else think our attacking line stood alot deeper than normal? Good to see IMO.

A good effort, I almost felt a bit better about the Leeds performance reading it. The contest overall just left me cold on the night. What's going on when destroying Wigan isn't fun anymore. Just one thing though Lee Smith was the dummy half in the opening stages 80% (guesstimate) of the time and the role was taken over man for man by Brent Webb when he replaced Smith.

I'm surprised we haven't seen that tactic used before in SL. The truly great Parramatta side of the early eighties had Paul Taylor doing the self same thing from full back week in, week out to great effect.

It was very noticeable when McGuire kicked for Donald's try.

If the ref's are going to let the defenders slow the ruck more teams will have to do this to open up defences.

A good development IMO.

Chin up statto. I know what will make you feel better. Gives us the stats from the 4 Leeds props on the night so we can see how Bailey compared.

Then a comparison with Kylie and Fekka wouldn't go amiss in light of the weeks discussion.

Not in my gift until the Super League website is updated. Probably Monday.



Not in my gift at all. How sad, (truly sad) would I have to be to collect opposition statistics as well as those of Leeds players.

Perhaps one of the weekly trade papers might contain the info but I haven't bought one of those since I moved to Lincoln 12 years ago.

So only spend good money on a 1,6,7,8,9,10,13 ???

Looks like this Keith Senior chap has been a waste of signing all these years.

Last nights game was so one sided it didn't matter. That shouldn't be the case next week against Saints where our backs will be asked to do more on both sides of the ball against a team who will turn up. I hope we have the experienced Senior back is all I'll say. The dropped ball from Watkins alone could swing a scoreline against a team like saints.

So could dropped ball by anyone, not sure what your point it but Senior is also partial to the odd handling error .

It is or the odd brain fart from peacock but the established players mistakes won't be highlighted in this case because that doesn't help his argument that we desperately need to sign someone NOW!!!