Agreed.

" It's all in the mind, folks!"
Late Wallace Greenslade, announcer on The Goon Show.

When did we go bottom?!!!





Yep, because playing 2nd division RU definitely requires the same strength and fitness as playing SL.



You said exactly the same when Leeds lost a few last season, you were wrong then too (as usual).



Sorry, aren't 2 & 3 basically the same? Are you just trying to make your list look longer?





Oh please expand on that for us, we'd love to know.



Perhaps if you didn't spend your entire time on this forum writing off the club, bleating about certain players and trying to belittle their achievements then people might take you a tad more seriously.











.

What's he done / doing?

The thing with this team and this was prominent when Sinfield and Peacock were still here, is that it often took them to reach a point where people wrote them off before coming good. I just sensed in the last week or so from McDermott and some players that they might've reached a point where privately they are going for the 2011-esque "people have written you off" angle.....whether they can pull that off though without certain players no longer there and several more injured is different matter though.

Previous weeks the mood was like "oh well we can't afford to let that gap get any bigger to teams above" and basically downbeat and even a bit almost feeling sorry for themselves and thinking that they would've just rolled into the 2016 season and carried on where they left off in 2015 in terms of how they were playing. Last week McDermott started to go on about how he and the group is looking forward to this situation they've found themselves in now as it's presented them with the chance to do something special if they're somehow able to turn this around and reach the top 4 (which it obviously would be because ATM it looks massively unlikely).

Even though the performances weren't good in most games their was an effort there but it was kind of an auto-pilot effort that can be misconstrued as no effort. I think if the effort really was truely lacking in a RL match then the nature of the game means you'll get cricket scores against you if all effort has gone. Against Hull it looked for the first time this year a real determined focused effort that we saw on Friday. Again the question as mentioned above is whether this current group can keep that going now on a weekly basis without certain players on the pitch.

If we were to make the top 4 from this position it would definitely blow 2011 and 2012 out of the water imo but i can't see us getting close TBH.top 8 would be an achievement in itself from here on in.

I am quietly confident regards the CC though, it really is something we can realistically win with top players returning within the next month or two.As long as we don't draw Wigan or Warrington away that is first up! we will see in a few hours.

It does look unlikely and we'll have to pick up wins at the likes of Saints which is usually a bonus if we win there given our record over the years. If we do though we are suddenly 4 points behind them which is catchable and good chance they'd be around 4th spot come season end.

Think what could give us a chance IF we can find a way to win the next two away games is that whilst the top 3 looks like being Wire, Catalans and Wigan, I think fourth spot will be a bit of a scrap by the looks of it with no team able to really cement their place with teams taking an even amount of points of each other. I can see 4th spot ending up with around 4/6 less points this year than what Saints managed in 2015.

Its the next five fixtures that will determine the season:

Saints A - winnable but Saints are capable of a performance like they put in against Warrington
Huddersfield A - a must win
Castleford H - should be again a winnable match
Wigan - Magic weekend - who knows
Warrington A - Sandow should be back by then so that will be tough

Win 4 out them and the season looks a lot better - the first 3 games are definitely winnable the last two very tough. Lose 4 and the middle eights is staring them in the face. A interesting few weeks

CC Draw is on Thursday morning on Radio 4.

What a strange option.

Akin to Poundland mixing it with John Lewis/Waitrose customers.

Here's my prediction...

Leeds V WBSLR

SL season is already gone unless Leeds win a minimum of 10 out their next 12 fixtures. They need to accumulate 26 points at the split stage. Scraping into the Top 8 after 23 rounds has little to no relevance, apart from avoiding an extra round of the CC next season.

The biggest positive for Leeds for the remainder of the season is the rest of the SL competition are also a shower of salary-cap induced shiyte, therefore it's still too early to write them off completely.

The current weakest team in the NRL would win SL with ease IMO.

Just trying to be positive



I agree with the last point - look what the Roosters did in the WCC

Aren't you one of those Waitrose customers?

I think the Roosters are in a false position at the bottom of the NRL. They'll go better when Waerea-Hargreaves, Cordner and Pearce return. But yes, they stuffed St Helens in the WCC with a number of debutant kids in their line-up whilst in pre-season undercooked mode.

Having watched a fair bit of the NRL this season on Premier HD, Newcastle Knights appear to have the weakest squad by a fair distance. Yet their halfback combo of Mullen and Hodkinson is still better than anything in SL. Throw in Gagai, the Sims Bros, the two big Matautia lads, Gagai, Smith, Snowden and Uate and even their relatively weak team by NRL standards would do a lot of damage over here.

It's dispiriting and hard work watching SL when there's access to eight live games of NRL a week instead.

I am, and I'll be paying Waitrose a visit later today.

I also listen to Radio 4 regularly and I know for certain it's core listener demographic are not fans of Rugby League. Most have probably never even heard of it

I agree the gulf in standard has grown significantly in the past three years to a point where the gap is a chasm.

All those who say its just five drives and a kick are so wrong - the skill level is so high in that league that you watch SL and you cringe at the standard.

Watching a team like the Broncos is a delight - the play the game game fast with great skill and expression

What's he done / doing?

I think it is pretty common knowledge that his dedication to his profession falls well short of the examples set by the likes of Sinfield, Peacock, JJB, McGuire. As the saying goes you can take a lad out of Cas but you cannot take Cas out of a lad.

Follow his twitter - if you can be bothered

Which is why the decision to use it for a Cup draw is win-win.

Introduce some RL fans to a bit of culture and political debate while introducing some Radio 4 listeners to RL.

Certainly a step up from having Harry Gration doing the draw on Look North, anyway.

Fair point Andy - it would interesting to hear Nick Robinson doing the draw

No it's not common knowledge at all. Please do tell us all what it is that he's doing or not doing, you seem to know more than everyone else as no one's mentioned anything. It must be a recent thing as he seemed to do OK last season, you know... when he won MOS.

And what's wrong with people from Castleford, is he even from Castleford?

I follow him on Twitter and like many young sportsmen he talks a lot of crap, so what. He also shows a lot of enthusiasm & dedication to the club so i'm not sure what your point is there, is that what your basing your "lack of professionalism" thing on, someone's Twitter feed?

Do you just copy & paste that every time someone calls you out?

Yes I said they'd not make the 4 and that hasn't changed. I think they're allowed a transition season after the last 10 years, don't you? A transition that's not been helped by the well publicised off-field happenings, including the worst injury list i've ever seen at Leeds. I've no doubt whatsoever that Leeds will be top 4 for each of the next 10 years though, no doubt at all. So feel free to bookmark this post and put your money where your mouth is next season when i'll be happy to take it off you - again.

In the mean time, please do keep posting the same **** day after day. No one's bored of reading it.

Same goes for your troll mate, William. Has he mentioned the NRL, how SKY killed the game, Winter rugby, the salary cap or even austerity yet this week? I bet he's mentioned them all... multiple times

Have any reigning champions ever failed to make top 8 the following season. Some appear fairly relaxed by the prospect but I would view Leeds leaving the dwindling band of SL everpresents (even for just the 8 games) as a huge blow to the club's reputation.

Re the Challenge Cup draw - anybody away (not just Wigan or Warrington) would be an obstacle not overcome so far this season. Backed St Helens this week after my tipping Hull worked better than a Sinfield half-time team talk.

Well it's certainly in the coach's front and centre it's just about all he goes on about. When this cull of the negatives gets underway they'll be behind him in the queue.

Well they sexually assaulted Saints so, very hard to disagree!

We obviously aren't going to win every game from now on, but it's who those losses are to that's critical. If we lose to Warrington it's obviously two points gone but I don't think we are chasing them. What we need to do is win all 3 of the return fixtures vs Saints, Hull and Cas..,.the likely contenders for the 4th spot. We then need to repeat the trick in the Super 8's.

Saints are 6 points clear of us, if we beat them Friday and in the Super 8's that's most of that gap gone, likewise the others.

The Challenge Cup as always is an x-factor. People hoping it can salvage our season yet if we go out early and have a few weeks off and Hull and/or Saints reach the final then how does their league form go? Do they do what we did and collapse after Wembley?

Not saying our chances are good, possibly as little as 10% maybe lower but think it's not quite over yet (will be if we lose this Friday) and even if we aren't involved in the race I still think the 4th place team won't match the 38 points of last year and it'll be more like 34.