Given most things that you have typed over the years, I think your prediction was a stab in the dark rather than anything concrete

I don't know about predictions loz but tbf to Gotcha he's stated for a while that the squad need freshening up and that we had too many ageing players that had served their purpose.
I personally am 50/50 with certain players and i think we are entering a transitional phase but of course other factors have to be considered this season and we could still be good come play-off time.

Of course it is. I mean how many other stab in the darks actually state specifically when and make that "stab in the dark" so far before?

But just for the record Loz, I really hope you are right on this and I was wrong all along. I really mean that.

Who do you advocate we drop to accommodate the 2 you mentioned above - Webb, Smith Diskin, Buderus?

I guarantee you there'd be an outcry on here if those players were dropped and we lost important games.

Of course if we had lost to Saints in an earlier round of the cup like we have done for the last X years then the squad would also have needed rebuilding then as well?
The fact is that the closer you get to the trophy, the greater the hurt when you fail and the more soul searching that goes on.


The problem with pessamists is that eventually they are going to be "proved right". You can complain about the squad all you want, every year, because unless we win the GF every year you will eventually be able to call yourself wise. You might as well predict winter. It's going to come along.

Of course not. Neither should we have bothered signed Dave Furner, Mark Glanville, Chris McKenna and many other strong defensive players. It's not an important aspect of the game at all.

I agree with this. But I ask again, If someone said over 18 months ago that unless changes are made for 2011 then the side would struggle to compete like it had, is that really a Pessamist? a lucky guess? or a realist?

Predicted what?

That we'd have an injury hit season?

That despite this, we'd be 4th with a game to play and still have a strong chance in the play offs?

That we'd make our first Challenge Cup Final in 5 years beating 3 of the top 5 along the way and lose to the 2nd place team in the league in the Final?

There's better in Super League we could have got and not flown over some second rate Aussie and paid him substantially more than we would a youngster from another Super League club.

You're either trolling or you're a deludonoid.

None of the above.

You know how much he's being paid do you?

Which youngsters from another SL club are better that would be cheap and available?

There aren't that many good centres in SL to start with - if Shenton is deemed to be one of the best we're struggling.

It's 2010. Any prediction about 2011 is still just a prediction.

There's a reason he's come over here at such a young age to play, it's either he's after the money or he's not good enough for a NRL side to want him, both would back up my point about him.

It was 2009 when stated. Prediction or not, I ask again, was it Pessimist prediction? lucky guess prediction? or a Realist prediction?

Having said that, it might well be that the club actually make the changes now that they should have planned for earlier, and have actually seen that they might have been shortsighted. I sincerely hope that is the case.

Oh dear.

Realistically the club have now two places in the squad to play with, Donald and eventually one asumes Eastwood. Returning to the club is BJB, and we will have Watkins back for next year. There may also be other players who leave during the off season for other reasons, under contract or not.

You rebuild a team slowly over time, you don't take drastic action when you have the squad who won the league leaders shield and won the GF. 1-2 players a year from within the club, and 1-2 players a year from outside would seem sensible. This year we have Clarkson who has come through and looks a great prospect, Ambler also looks like he will develop and Watkins would surely have also come through this year as well but for his injury.
Delaney was signed for 3 years and we signed an international back row from NZ who should have been with us for 3 years. That's quite a lot of player turnover for the Champions.
We know the likes of Kylie, Keith, Ali, Buderus will need replacing at the end of next year and now also Donald and Eastwood (although as he's hardly played for us he barely counts) are also going this year. Peacock? Who knows now if he'll come back at all? The time off may do the rest of his body no harm or he could never recover from the knee injury fully.

The team's core for the last few years, Sinfield, McGuire, Diskin, Bailey, Webb, Hall, Smith, JJB, Ablett, have all shown they have plenty in the tank (Burrow, I'm becoming worried about - although I'm not writing him off just yet), but I suspect that some fans have become "bored" with seeing some of these guys turn out for us year after year. I haven't. This year we have lost direction, partly due to injuries disrupting the season continuously and partly, I suspect, because the guys are mentally tired of constantly having to be on top. Every dominant team over the last few years has had "breather" seasons, where they haven't won anything. Saints won nothing last year, and with key injuries look longshots to win anything this year.

Too much emphasis on the WCC and the CC this year has cost us league points. But it's a sobering thought that if we had not lost games to Crusaders at home, Castleford at home, Salford and Wakefield, we would be very close to Wigan and top spot. That's not a huge extra "ask" for the guys for next year is it?

There is no need to panic. Think how long Wigan and Wire have been building up to this successful season. You need a lot of luck with injuries in SL and all the disruption of earlier in the season meant that we have struggled to get any momentum going.

My big concern this season has been our terrible defence. Quite often we have relied on our attacking prowess to get us out of jail against teams. I'd rather see 18-12 every week rather than 52-50 basketball scores. Complaining that Delaney is a defensive player is just a laugh. If more players were defensive minded we would have probably had a better season.

I think rather than players being past it etc we should look more at their motivation. If all 17 players had the spirit of JP, we might have given the Wolves a match at Wembley.

Delaney is one of the last people the witch hunt should be looking at. IMO he was one of our more dangerous & better players in the final. All this talk of playing him in the back-row is silly - I'd much prefer him at centre to Smith. Thought he did a good job of handling Inglis in the WCC as well.

Just because he's over here doesn't mean he's not good enough for the NRL - Lauitiiti is just one example of a player who came over earlier on in his career, Jamie Lyon is another, Tonie Carroll etc. I'm sure money is a factor, but when isn't it?

Senior is the bigger problem - still an attacking threat but his defence was awful on Saturday. I fear that next season will be one too far for him.

Agree with just about all of this, expect I think 1-2 players is short sighted considering the position we were in with age, performance, and contracts. You are entirely correct under normal circumstances however.




And then I dissagree with this. 2 or 3 of those players do not have plenty in the tank, IMO, and more of a worry is the reliance upon certain ones.



And then I think you make a good point again. But we need to be realistic, and if we lose this weekend we will finish 6th, which is just about what our peformance levels deserve. We certainly haven't been as good a team as Huddersfield this season, for example, if we are been honest. I don't think the team suffered for having emphasis on the other two comps, although they may not have helped. Same as I don't think injuries can be our excuse because we only have to look at Saints there.

The problem I see, and make no mistake about it, Crusaders will only get better now in future seasons, and the Bulls will be much better next season than this. We will not be able to put in the same performance levels next year and make top 6, let alone have a chance on the final weekend of making top 4.

this squad of players have won 3 grand finals in a row, and are in a decent position to get to another one this year and have been in the challenge cup final. They have had a good season.

This year they havent been as good as they were last year, but not by miles, Wigan and Warrington have been much better than they were last year and that gives the illusion that we have regressed much much more than we have.

Also i think some of the tertiary players, Kirke, JJB, Kylie, and Smith havent hit the levels this year they have in previous years.

But i cant see anything wrong with the spine of the side and the progression plans already in place. Webb, Sinfield, Mcguire, Burrow, Diskin are being Shadowed and will over the next couple of years begin to pushed by the younger players we have in reserve or out on loan.

Where i think we have struggled is firstly injuries have knocked us off our stride, many games i have watched this year and thought we looked inches away from it clicking, defensive and offensive patterns take time to build, Burrow has been missing for long periods meaning our defence on that side has suffered, its not all down to Senior.

The bigger worry is take away Peacock, which will happen more and more over the next few years, and we are completely over-run in the middle of the park by the better teams. Ambler is coming along nicely imo, and Pitts will likely get much more game time next year, but asking either of them at a very young age to be a pack leader like Peacock is a massive massive ask. If Eastwood does go then i think we need to bring in another top quality prop. When we can compete up front we will win a lot more than we lose, our backs are probably the best in the league, and certainly imo the most dangerous in broken play

Thoughts on Staurday for what they're worth...

Warrington were superb in all departments (certainly by comparison to us), well coached by a good coach who came up with a perfect game plan for the referee, the opponents (including their injury problems), and the conditions. Credit where credit is due, we would have needed a fully fit squad/team and to have been at the very top of our game. Sadly I don't think either applied on Saturday. What follows is in no way an attempt to detract from Warrington's achievements - they were the better team, and fully deserved their win - we'll get over it.

Injuries - we sorely missed JP (and Burgess would have helped as well). We just could not match them in defence. They made us earn every inch on Saturday and then found they could make too many easy yards up the middle around the ruck. Three hookers playing on the back of a very dominent forward pack - you don't need to be a rocket scientist...

We need to polish up some of our core skills - it probably doesn't need saying under the circumstances but held up over the line three times is a sin. Another point. Seen it mentioned elsewhere and that is that Warrington played the game just as Silverwood was prepared to let them, (as Melbourne did in the WCC). They slowed us down all day and this gave them all the time to get their defence sorted out and cut down our options. They also stretched the offside parameter to it's limit as well. We on the other hand seem to be a little naiive in this. We tend to get off the tackle as soon as the ref calls move/held. It may wind opposition fans up to see our players (Senior in particular), leaning over the tackle looking at the referee to see when he's going to call it but all teams do exactly the same. Other teams however are better at gaining extra time before the call is made. I have heard it staright from Leeds staff that they aren't into all the wrestling at the PTB (claiming that they seem to get penalised more when they try). However. we clearly need to look at what teams like Warrington, Wigan and Huddersfield are doing differently to us because they can slow us down with impunity and currently we get penalised for trying to do the same. This is not an attempt to whinge about other teams dastardly tactics - it's just how it is. We need to improve in that department.

Silverwood - HE DID NOT COST US THE GAME ON SATURDAY - there are plenty of reasons that happened and some have been highlighted here and the rest can be found in other threads. However, what really p*$s*d me off about his performance on Saturday was that he did rob us of potentially one of the best finals in years. As I said ealrier, he allowed Warrington to murder us at the PTB. To have any hope on Saturday (especially with the team we had available - individual selections notwithstanding), we needed to get quick PTB and try and run them ragged. We just never got a sniff. In fact, there were times I thought we did quite well given how much they were able to dominate us round the ruck (JJB's audacious pass in the first half probably the best example).
However, he effectively killed us, and the game, stone dead with two decisions in the first half. The forward pass to Hall - if it was forward it can only have been milimetres at most (compare to the pass that put Smith in at the end). The pass was flat and a lovely piece of play. Then we had Atkins second try. I know we should have defended his run better from the PTB (Hall and Kirke the guilty parties), but FFS, Silverwood was running towards Mathers when it hit him on the and how he missed that I have no idea. 8-6 at half time and we have the prospect of a real game in the second half rather than Warringtin just having to soak up the pressure and waiting till we ran out of steam.

Burrow's defence at the start of the second half was unbelievable but how many will remember it in the context of the game we saw on Saturday - all we will remember is how well Mathers went instead (and for what it's worth Mathers should be remebered for how well he went defensively - he was brilliant.)


This season has shades of 2005 all over it - we get to the CC Final and disaster strikes just before hand, effectively writing off our season. Heard a few people on the way out of Wembley saying "we'll get them in the GF..." I don't know what they were on at the time but I wish I could have shared some once I got back home Sat evening, believe me.

I have no problems with the result - Warrington were the better team and fully deserved the win. I went down thinking we were going to struggle but that we had a chance. If I'd known Silverwood was going to turn into such a one sided procession I'd have stayed at home. We weren't good but I don't think we deserved the game we got.

Next year needs to be a season of assessment - we need to look at where we need to strengthen the squad because there are players that are getting past their sell by dates. We need to see some more of the youngsters and we need to assess just who needs to stay and guide them. A year of rebuilding for me next year.


Apologies for the length of this diatrible but I don't bother posting very often on here...

I have had this argument many times this season. This team is nothing like the team we had in 2005. This team does not even come close to the team we had in 2005. Regardless of that side losing two finals, it was a joy to watch and an extremely good side.



We haven't played Wigan and Warrington each week, only 4 times just like last year. Infact our results against Wire are better this year than last in the league. The league position is irrelevant and IMO not a measurement of where we are this year.

What is relevant is performance and quality shown. In that regard we are a million miles away from last year. The very reason why I for one have continually stated that this season is not a blip, but a downward trend.

Would not entirely disagree with you but do feel that there is more improved competition than there was in 2005 - it's not just Wigan and Warrington that have improved over the last couple of seasons.