As with the other thirteen clubs in the competition , we do not have the right to be in the top 8 , and we can't just expect a play-off place to be handed to us . If we ain't good enough we ain't good enough . It ain't the end of the world . I bet there ain't many fans of other teams that wouldn't swap their team's achievements over the last few seasons for ours and then settle for a few mediocre years .

Spot on IMO.

True, but given the resources available we should be competing much better than we are at the moment.

The PTB was the key tonight especially the 2nd half. We had a very slow PTB not so much down to Saints' doing but are own, we seemed too obsessed with trying to milk penalties and con Ganson (who wasn't falling for it) instead of just trying to get up and play quickly. Likewise in defence we seemed to cause are own downfall by NOT trying to slow down the Saints PTB, it wasn't so much the Saints players causing the quick PTB's as are defenders getting up quickly allowing them to as if we were scared of giving away penalties.

Also i've defended McDermott's selections before but to keep Lunt on the bench for the full 80 is shocking.

a big hit when the game was lost,sort of confirms my point

why we Never looked like winning
Darrell Griffin only play 20 min why ?
Kevin Sinfield at 6 not 13
rob burrow at 9 not 7
danny McGuire at 7 not 6
not playing a full 17 (Shaun Lunt)
Leuluai and Peacock was domianted from the start (time to start Bailey with
Griffin or moore only one of Leuluai and Peacock should play not both)

we just aren't good enough. The 5 grand final wins have papered over the terminal cracks running through the core of the club.

I disagree with most of this.

Griffin played 20 minutes because the other 3 props offered a lot more on the night - I though Peacock and Leuluai stood up to their pack very well. Peacock especially, had a monster game.

Sinfield is a 6.

Burrow played at 7 against Saints last time out - anyone who thinks he's the answer as a scrum half should rewatch that game.

I'll give you Lunt.

That's hilarious - damn I'm so jealous of Wire's trophy cabinet

We simply don't play the ball quick enough, most of our problems stem from our failure to control the PTB. We allow teams to get on the front foot to easily and we don't work hard enough ourselves to gain a quick PTB in attack. Some would argue that this is down to the hooker, and thats part of it but, the pack as a whole are so pedestrian in this area at times. The sky comentators kept talking about how we like to play attacking rugby but to me we looked slow and predictable in attack. This is a side that needs freshening up an injection of pace into the forwards is a must.

The last one perhaps, the previous 4 wins might be stretching it a bit.

Without stating the blinding obvious we are not looking good at the moment, I keep waiting for a big team performance. Apart from the manly game we don't seem to able to up our performance,when we beat warrington I felt they had an off night. I am happy with Brian Mac as coach but some times he seems slow to react to situations. Felt sorry for Danny McGuire he ran his blood to water,must have been well up in the tackle count . Felt our fifth tackle count options were very poor. Also our forwards seem jaded,various times in the latter stages of the second must of them were blowing hard. Another worrying aspect is our points average is poor. I am convinced we will beat the bulls if not it really will be time to press the panic button.

Burrow played at 7 against Saints last time out - anyone who thinks he's the answer as a scrum half should rewatch that game.( he went off injured in the first half

give him a full 80

I suspect he was hoping Bailey would ignore him so he could write a blog about it.

My memory might be playing tricks but I thought it was well into the game when he went off. He certainly showed me enough that he is not the answer at 7. He offers less than either of our other 2 half backs. He's great utility value and offers incredible impact off the bench, as demonstrated in last years play offs.

Why anyone would want to change that formula is beyond me.

IMO the rot set in when you let Dean Lance go

They look pretty much similar as last year in terms of results and performances during the regular rounds.

So what's the problem apart from your knee jerking?

Acctually think welook a bit better at this point in the season than we did at the same time last year

No composure ,defensive line speed pedestrian and stupid off-loads that were never on and that was AFTER going 18-12 up.
Far too often our defensive line took 1 step forward and then hesitated whereas ST's were moving in fast as a line and controlling the ptb with and without the ball.
Beaten by the better team and just to add a cherry on top our esteemd coach makes us do another 80 minutes with 16 players and the better 9 sat on the bench playing with himself.

That's a pretty low benchmark.

Last season though we had Maguire coming back from a serious injury. We also had a new coach who the players had to get used to. Tonight we had a full squad available and looked se,ond best most of the game. Losing to Saints is no disgrace and its not the end of our season but I think there are reasons to be more concerned than last year.

One big area where the team need to improve is after we score a try. Whereas teams like Warrington will go ahead and score another straight we have a knack of conceding within the following 5 mins. We don't so much have to score back to back tries but at least controlling the next 5 mins and putting some pressure on would be nice.

That's a fair point and there's evidence to back it up. Last season Leeds didn't beat any Top 4 club until round 27 and even then, Hudds were already shot by that stage. This season Leeds have beaten Warrington therefore this season is already an improvement on last season.

Leeds set the ultimate in low benchmark standards last year.

It only takes 2 good performances at the end to win SL.

The rest is unimportant.

BM seems to believe that a number of senior players are in cruise mode (taken from the BBC):

"I know everybody else is talking about what happened last year. I don't like being eighth. I want us to come top and finish league leaders.

"It's not helping this group that everybody else is saying it's all right because of what Leeds did last year. This group responded last year to things that were said. It was a desperate, dire situation last year and we saw the best of that group of players.

"I've just questioned them whether they're in the comfort zone, thinking that mythical back end is going to happen for us. It's a very dangerous route to go down."

The last comment suggests that's exactly what BM thinks is happening. I didn't think at all he would have been happy with the way things went for most of last year, and it sounds as if he's just as unhappy this year. He is absolutely right that if the team think that they can cruise for the year and somehow reproduce the play-off form when its needed then we are on a massively dangerous route.

If the team is cruising, then the only way to shake them out of it is to make changes and for BM to drop players he doesn't think are standing up to be counted.

TBH its a very poor effort from the team if true.