Enthusiasm and organisation. We lacked both and Warrington had both in bucket loads. Particularly in that period when they went 14-0 up. After that it was just panic mode from us and trying to throw the ball around and make something special happen every set.

Said I'd go for Sinfield to start and how we missed him. I'm with Gotcha, Sinfield on at the start wouldn't have provided us with anything special play-wise but he'd have had us better organised than we were for that period when they opened up the 14-0 lead. Once he came on the horse had bolted plus tired bodies meant it was too late even for him to turn minds and attitudes around.

Don't think Child had a bad game in terms of decisions but again he oversaw a game that threatened to boil over and became bad tempered. McGuire shouldn't have been allowed to talk to him the way he did late on but Child let him and from early on the Leeds players seemed to have a problem with him (and you can't just say it's because we were losing, because I don't recall the same stuff happening at the HJ when Bentham reffed and didn't give us much).......looks very much like Child reffed matches for us in the near future will take on a similar pattern to Friday and to when Silverwood reffed us for the next few years after that WCC game when the players seemed frustrated and annoyed by the ref from minute 1. The players relationship with Silverwood has improved from a few years back (I think the departures of Senior and Webb helped a lot).....we can't stick our bottom lip out everytime Child refs us though.

You wonder whether there's something of a grudge towards Child from the players following last year's Hardaker incident and what he did or didn't put in his report.

He certainly couldn't have contributed less on Friday than Mulhern did.

When we've lost/losing games before we can get a bit mouthy/frustrated with the offical, but Friday (as well as the Child game with the Hardaker incident in) was on another level, similar to how it was with Silverwood post WCC.

I definately think our players don't like him, and I'm not saying that's right btw. It's something our players need to address and not allow to happen in future games with him, because now that the RFL finally gave him a Leeds game for the first time since we'll probably see him a bit more often now so our guys need to grow up a bit and not sulk with him.

McGuire's snappy comment to him along the lines of "it's not all about you you know!" I think probably highlights perfectly the opinion of him in the Leeds dressing room.

imo i believe that mulhern has far more to offer the rhinos long term than yates does

i may be proved wrong on this but i believe that yates was a project that was worth the investment until a better project from within appeared,i believe that mulhern is a far better player to have on our rosta to use going forward

I heard that as well and thought at the time it was bang out of order. To be honest the fact that Child let that pass did him credit in my book. Danny and the rest of the team, if they have an issue with him, need to get a grip and act like professionals. We can't pick the ref and being into his ribs from start to finish won't do us any favours or get us the benefit of any doubt.

I agree we need to get a grip and act like professionals.

I would say that Child said to McGuire that that was the FOURTH time he had to speak to McGuire. Don't know what he said on the previous three, but those added to the last one should've seen McGuire in the sin bin. So even though he's on the end of the abuse, I think he's shown once again to be a poor ref by not punishing him as it's not going to stop it happening in the future.....he didn't even really give him an ominous "one more time and you'll get a card".....just seems so weak to me. Even Warrington players were threatening to boil over at one point with Sims and Hill in particular and probably only because the margain was so big with so little left did the bitterness simmer down in the final moments. I mean Leeds/Warrington games are usually played in good spirits compared to some of our games vs some of the other guys from the wrong side of the Pennines, but not on this occasion with this referee.

As the referee seems to be the main point of discussion, I'm surprised nobody has mention Simms' forearm to Sinfield's face.

The problem he has is that he can be hugely pedantic about the smallest things in a game, which gets players wound up, then he just turns a blind eye to stuff like Sims's forearm smash on Sinfield, which exacerbates it.

Combine it with a widely held belief that he considers himself aloof and the centre of attention, and it's no wonder that a lot of players seem to have a problem with him. It's not just Leeds games where he's had problems keeping control of both sides.

Mulhern got the token last 5-10 minutes when the game was done and both sides were playing out the clock. May as well have left him sub not used.

On a more positive note, thought Delaney had his best game of the season. Looked strong and didn't shy away from the hard stuff.

I presume that one will be put to the video panel. I hope so anyway - it wound me up seeing it on Friday night. Someone should have given Sims a sly slap or something back.

Child problem has always been he sees too much, i forget who but i read an interview with a ref...Silverwood or Cummins i think?

They mentioned how you just have to let certain things go so that the game flows better...main one being the play the ball, if they put the ball down and at least look like they've played it right even though the foot doesn't touch, they let it slide.

Refs will always miss things too, human nature.

The trouble with Child is he is pinging players for the stuff the others are a little bit more patient with and missing the really important stuff which doubly frustrates players.
I prefer the older style of reffing, let the game play out, let the big forwards 'sort out' those getting a bit sneaky and pushing the limits.

Whilst this new enjoyable style of attack is great to watch I think it was always inevitable that on some occasions it wouldn't work. At 14-0 down we still had 55 mins to comeback which is plenty of time but when we got the ball we played like we only had 10 mins left and were constantly going for the Harlem Globetrotters stuff.

I remember after the Hull game and the poor first half there that we need to realise we can't expect to play that style for 80 mins every match. We need to recognise the times we just have to complete good solid sets with nothing fancy and make sure the opposition start their sets as close to there line as possible.

Think it was also inevitable that they'd be an occasion we'd miss Hall and Briscoe with regards to the metres they make helping us come away from our line. Handley whilst he tried hard must've ran sideways more than he did forward.

As I said earlier in the season, Tony Smith is a very good coach. Some Leeds fans who were enjoying Wire's period of inconsistency (they're now 5th or joint 4th if you like) and denegrating him would do well to watch both our Wire games and the game plan where the master schooled the pupil.

Yes this season he has had McDermott's number and Warrington will be in the mix come the end of the year

Agree with most of this but I don't think completing sets would have worked with the forwards being so dominated. Wigan showed the way attack down their left sadly for the Rhinos our configuration on the right didnt permit the same level of success

They were also playing against a different left side for Wire, Sal.

No charge for Sims.

"Player makes some contact with arm to face of opponent. Penalty sufficient."

Minor incident, seen by the officials and dealt with in the appropriate manner with a penalty to Leeds. Not much else to say really.

Tbh though as well as Warrington played on Friday, they didn't do anything tactically/gameplan different against us that we haven't seen many times before against both us and other teams.....sometimes it's worked for them sometimes it hasn't (they could hardly complete a set for love nor money in the 1st half of the CC semi several months back). Their win was down to a better enthusiasm, when you have that then your gameplan is going to look better. If they didn't have such good enthusiasm on the night then they'd have been dropping balls, missing tackles, losing collisions etc. (all the things we did) and then it wouldn't have looked so good.

Warrington played like a team who knew they couldn't afford to slip further behind in the table. We played like we'd let the praise we got from the St Helens victory go to our heads and that we could fling it around and it'd be the same result as the previous week.

Our two most eye-catching performances this season vs Hull and St Helens away, which won the team praise and had Sky pundits getting carried away......were followed by our two flattest performances in the two Warrington defeats. Looked like to me that the team might have spent a bit too much time last week patting themselves on the backs for the impressive beating of Saints. Hopefully when we next put in one of those really impressive showings we can follow it up the following week.

Other than it's now open season on grounded players. Deliberate acts of violence like that, which can result in serious injury, need to be dealt with not brushed under the carpet. I now expect any Leeds player who throws a deliberate forearm into the face of a grounded player incapable of protecting themselves once the tackle is complete to face no punishment other than 'penalty sufficient'

Same centre wing and half back which Wigan completely destroyed - then comparing Gelling - as good as any centre in SL at the moment to Ablett is unfair.

Whilst I understand your rationale I think you are stretching a point to say Smith was very fortunate to produce two dominant performances because Leeds got too big headed after two good performances the week before.

Didn't say that, his side performed very good on both occasions and it would've been hard to beat them for any SL team on Friday night.

There is a point with our showings though. Granted how Warrington performed played a key part in that but we clearly were well below in all departments from the previous weeks. I think quite a few teams would've beaten us on Friday night tbh.