I thought that. Very strange

There was at least 1 against Leeds ,
The fact was the game was reffed differently to any other game since lockdown

Good solid performance all round.
Myler for me edged MoM ahead of Prior and Ava.
Why anyone can have a go at Handley god only knows.
He constantly gets on the scoresheet.
Briscoe for all his faults this year and last had a decent game but our SR were pretty much not on their game for me.
Gotcha saying Myler had a poor game is more about wanting Walker in the team I guess.
The only thing I feel Agar got wrong was the selection of Sutcliffe over Smith and it looks like he was going for pace on the bench as opposed for bulk which almost backfired when Cuthbertson went off.
Thought Salford were unlucky to be penalised when incorrect play the ball from Pauli Pauli as it`s not as if it doesn`t happen a fair bit of the time anyway.
Saying that their try came from the 2nd knock on by Salford that should have been a Leeds ball and not back to the original first knock on.
Evalds the pick of the Salford players.

Agree with all the above other than i thought Mellor had a strong game.

Good analysis for me. Totally agree re the selection almost backfiring: I can only guess that Agar wanted more cover in the back line and A Sutcliffe fitted the bill. Cuthbo getting injured was just bad luck but I thought we didn't have as strong a presence down centre field as we could have, which caused us to struggle more than we did against Wigan.

We did look the better side throughout for me to be fair though. Salford were just incredibly tenacious and put some very smart team moves together. With some better execution they'd have had us; more than one clean break with numbers which they absolutely killed (with some great vision from our D to disrupt).

Evalds very good, I thought Watkins was excellent for them too. Brown was tricky. Mossop targeted big Mik all game and tried to put him off with some real aggression. Just goes to show though how Oledski has come on and garnered respect from opposition this year. Their big units were starting to cause us problems late game too.

Maybe not a classic on absolute quality (although there were plenty of quality moments), but a real classic in terms of competitiveness and enjoyment.

finals usually are

No disrespect to Salford but Leeds won it in the semi against Wigan. Not just the results but the strength of the performance.

So glad we sneaked it, but you could see the belief even though they were playing poorly second half, I was always confident.

On an aside, Watkins is still all class. Great hands, great feet.

Correct

Such a strange season, such a strange world we live in right now. There is a bit of joy in that team now, good to see and really looks like things are building.

I don't know how you play in a final like that in an empty stadium but both teams were extraordinary under the circumstances.

Think Prior gets the grief because people expect any overseas import that comes over is going to be a Buderus or Ali!

Thing I have taken from all this is how much noise the club made about bringing in "the right people not just the right players" and I think we are starting to see a bit of that. Obviously a first win for a lot of them so bound to be a big one for them but you can certainly see how much it means and it all seems to be for the right reason. Both Ava and Handley gave pretty emotional interviews.

We've probably all seen the spirit of the Rhino thing JJB came up with. I really do think he deserves some credit after the stick he was given for getting a "job for the boys". I know we'll never know for certain I reckon a lot of the closeness we see in the current squad comes back to that time and those conversations.

Buderus was injured for most of his 3 years with us. Came Good at the end though and is probably remembered for that....

Buderus played 80+ games in 3 years. He had one bad injury, but was pretty healthy for the most part.

Quite. There's some bizarre rewriting of history on here at times.

Brett Delaney wasn't a huge profile signing when he came to us (although not shabby either) - and he had a great career here. We have been hit-and-miss with star names, but some of the best imports have been the solid professionals like Prior.

The thing about him is that he is absolutely not a prop (like Merrin), and he needs to be in the back row, ideally LF. That's where I scratch my head a bit when Cam Smith has been playing well and getting into 1st grade on merit. Then again Prior put in a real performance in the CC Final and I'm not sure Smith is quite at that level yet.

Prior has a really good offload on him from what I've seen, and if we can encourage that he'll cause damage.

Honestly I think our squad is looking very well balanced this year, now we've found the right positions for a couple of players, and switched Hurrell to the right. One real high quality prop addition and we'll be in a position to put more dominant performances in. Exciting times - it just depends on what state our finances are in during Covid times as to whether we can afford that kind of quality for 2021. It's tantalisingly close now because these young lads like Holroyd, Walters, even Smith and Oledski are going to get better.

What happened during the GG was we stopped getting 'star' imports to try and build a team around, and instead bought ones that would fit into what we already had. It didn't always work out *cough*Achurch*, but we've had more successes than failures.

Kylie wasn't heralded before he came across, and neither was Donald really. Both absolutely cracking players for us IMO. Even further back Brad Godden, maybe Chris McKenna.

I think the signings of Prior, Ava and Martin are in that kind of mould, but I wouldn't mind a push in this prop position... then again I was annoyed we missed out on Sam Kasiano so I clearly know nothing!

will add marc glanville a man who could hardly walk but tidied up everything

There doesn't seem to be much news on Cuthbertson injury. Anyone know what he did and how long he will be out for?

Glanville was an integral part of Murray's rock hard pack. One of my favourite memories was him 'accidentally' standing on a Lahndan player's hand, the player getting up and trying to lamp Glanville, and Glanville getting the penalty.

I hearted Marc Glanville.

I loved the transformation under Murray it was magnificent we became very very tough with a touch of world class at half with Harris. Fond memories and rest in peace Graham.

Shoulder injury Agar thinks he may have played his last game for Leeds.
He's been a terrific signing.

our pack being investigated was ironic after some of the thuggery on some of our 80s and 90s teams

One of my proudest moments as a Rhino having witnessed the serial capitulation of many a Leeds pack in the 80’s and 90’s.

Absolutely. It was such a pleasure to watch after years of being abysmal and soft