Bit harsh! We only saw 30 seconds! Also we started the second half better than Wigan so our coaches half time talk was more effective than their guy's ranting.

What happened at the end of the game was down to a few players being too tired or lazy/not fit in defence. Some of our players thought we had already won when they went down to 12 men and stopped playing rugby.

First half set completion was 63%. With a stat like that you are not asking the opposition to do enough defending, and that should have been reinforced by the coaching staff at half time.

You are right JC we did only see 30 seconds, but it seems to me to be fairly reflective of the way that the coach interacts (or not) with the players. We failed to win this game due to our inability to work Wigan hard enough meaning they had gas in the tank long after ours went.

Bananas don't have fingers .... how dare you question Eddie Hemmings.

McDermott had nothing to address at half-time .... except for the 7 penalties conceded, 3 forward passes, 3 knock-ons, 1 crazy offload when the count had restarted and the now customary brain-fart moment.

Other than that everything was hunky dory.

Good, glad we agree.

At the time I was glad he did it... going for a drop goal or kick down field and ending up conceding a try before half time would have given them confidence and knocked ours.

Leeds had the option and used it in the most negative way imaginable. Not sure 'the skip' knew too much about it either.

The whole 'what we have we hold' approach ultimately came back to bite Leeds on the a[irs[/ie big time and eventually contributed to the dropping of a home point, not that I thought that was the wrong approach after going 18 points ahead. Grinding out the sets and ending with a good kick and chase should have closed the game out.

That it didn't work on this occasion was credit to Wigan generating speed around the play the ball (which Leeds couldn't get defensively set against) and some expansive play off the back of it.

Entertaining contest.

I hardly think coaches have a one to one with each player at half time.

Every coach has a different method at half-time, some work better than others. The fact is, we haven't a clue what goes on.

I honestly believe that Sinny didn't know the count had been reset (despite Wee Rob waving his fist in the air like some kind of idiot)

It's a negative attitude that was prevalent in the game and the season as a whole, instead of pushing your advantage you show the opposistion your afraid of them - going for 2 at wire earlier this season back fired, going for two at Wakey was just pathetic and going for 2 twice this week and wasting an attacking opportunity goes some of the way to costing us a point this week* - i always laugh if the opposition go for tow, it should inspire Leeds that the opposition dont think they can break us down

*of course other factors didnt help us, dirty Weegan, crap ref decisions and him stopping the clock for no reason cos Leeds are ahead (eg scrum with 25 to go, neither side set and both arms up, cf southstanders having to tell him to stop the clock v saints)

Are you suggesting that Mr Silverwood is biased against the Rhinos?
I wonder if tvoc can(will) tell us our record under him prior to last season's WCC & since then?

He must've see him surely!? The only thing I can think of is that he thought Rob was asking Silverwood for it, rather than signalling that we'd already been awarded it?

Ooh that sounds like fighting talk.



I'll have to think about it now.



__________

Richard Silverwood: Leeds All Games (All Comps)

Played 52, Won 34, Drawn 1, Lost 17, 66%

Up to and including WCC 2010:

Played 41, Won 29, Drawn 0, Lost 12, 71%

Post WCC 2010:

Played 11, Won 5, Drawn 1, Lost 5, 50%

I hate discussing the "bias of refs". It's all total garbage.

You can't possibly say whether a professional official's like or dislike of a club will have any impact at all on proceedings. Total garbage.

Let's say (just for arguments sake) that Silverwood hates Leeds after the stick Senior etc gave him at the WCC... do you not think that under scrutiny from the Sky cameras, and match commissioner, and at the risk of losing his job, he could actually end up awarding more in favour of Leeds? You can't possibly say either way.

He got stuff wrong, yes (Most noticeably the McShane offside ruling?! That was a bit of a head scratcher!) but not because he hates Leeds. That's just silly.

At least he isn't James Child.

Watching in the Carnegie, he clearly did not signal another 6 until Sinfield had the ball and was running into the tackle. All around us were complaining about how late the ref was in signalling another 6. No chance of Sinfield seeming him signalling.

Of course, I would hope that as well as signalling, the ref would have shouted it clearly and loudly. That is something of course we can not judge from the Carnegie.

I meant Burrow. Sinnie ran straight past Burrow (who was also signalling), and who he MUST have seen. What I meant was, perhaps Sinfield only thought Burrow was signalling to ASK for the call (which players often do!), and wasn't to know that in actual fact Burrow was signalling to say the call had been given.

I can't find a link, but there was some sort of study done that showed players only take in something like a maximum of five minutes worth of what's said during the half time interval (not sure if it was footballers or rugby players).

There's so much adrenaline going around that they need five minutes or so to just unwind and settle down once they come off the field. The middle five minutes is the key time for delivering information, while the final five minutes is spent getting ready to restart the game.

In terms of how that translates to the last 15 minutes of a game, I would suspect that in the heat of battle what got said at half-time or pre-game is lost to a great extent. Your body and mind are both fatigued and you operate on instinct as much as anything.

I know one thing, whether or not he's biased...I'm absolutely sick to the back teeth of the sight of him!



Looking at tvocs stats, in charge of us 11 times since last year's WCC? That seems like a hell of a lot, and I'd be willing to bet that's a lot more than any other ref since (tvoc?)

Give me Ganson any day

What a lot of people don't realise when Refs are getting stick it's not what he's penalising us for it's the fact that they appear not to be penalising the opposition for the same offences.
Perfect example is Bailey he was rightly pinged for his facial on farrell but then in nearly every tackle he received he had players around his head ,facials and grapples going on.
The same with Senior ,Silverwood blew at his 1st opportunity to penalise him and to be fair it was a penalty but what about when he broke clear and J tompkins pulled him down by his head/neck and then laid on?

Amen brother.

Excellent observation/point and here are the numbers:

Count of Referee:

Richard Silverwood - =#FF000011 (29%)
Thierry Alibert - =#FF00005 (13%)
Phil Bentham - =#FF00005 (13%)
Steve Ganson - =#FF00005 (13%)
James Child - =#FF00004 (11%)
Ben Thaler - =#FF00004 (11%)
Robert Hicks - =#FF00002 (5%)
Ian Smith - =#FF00002 (5%)

Total - 38

Wow, so more than twice as much as any other ref? That's remarkable. I don't particularly think he has something against Leeds, but he does interpret the rules in different ways to some of the others, and that in particular is a disadvantage to the way we play.

Could be argued that if we get him so often we shouldn't have any issues in playing to his interpretations.

We would'nt have any problems if he stuck to 1 way of interpretating the game!!

Familiarity breeds contempt.
Not sure in which direction though.
Although it could all be explained by the so-called top referees getting the bulk of the top games i.e. those involving the top teams, such as the Rhinos.
I wonder what the ref stats look like for Saints & Wigan.