If it only were just a couple of missed tackles in one set!! His form over the past few weeks has been poor - his performance on Saturday could easily has cost his team a place at Wembley!!

No one is disputing his 100% effort and commitment to the team but sometimes, no matter what your bias you cannot gloss over everything and make excuses because he has played well in the past. Plenty on here are giving Tomkins some stick for exactly the same stuff - great player but he had a shocker, not as bad as JJB on the day but by his own high standards a shocker.

I don't understand how people can ignore it. Out of seventeen players for us on Saturday he was the only one who had a poor game. And he did have a poor game.

And it wasn't just Saturday, that type of defending has been happening for a number of weeks.

I see it said that he has a wrist injury. To be honest that would explain a lot, as his problem is that he is going high in the tackle and trying to get the ball and all hold. Due to lack of completing the grip he is been swatted off. But why the hell is he playing with an injury that is stopping him from performing his role fully. If true that says a lot about the way McDermott coaches and picks the side. It's not as if his attacking ability is a reason to pick him, it was always his desire and effort that won him his place.

This isn't a let's get JJB out post by the way. It is a let's get JJB right post.

tomkins is very elusive

what would be your lasting memory apart from him being a grafter?

big hits? long distance tries? powering over from 5 yards?

Someone who's done remarkably well to overcome injuries and runs his blood to water. to overcome no particular standout abilities, but can damage the team by doing so

It has been a recurring theme that JJB has been isolated for identical tries between our posts on a regular basis. That these scorers have had acres of space to oppose JJB and often score untouched in the middle of the field from one pass from dummy half is a far greater concern to me than JJBs individual form. Something aint right in our structure and it needs fixing.

That said, JJB was terrible Saturday. I found his turnovers in their 25 the most frustrating.

He doesn't draw too much flak because of past contributions.

Gotcha doesn't like him because of his facial hairl

Played very well last night. Was a leader in the second half

Good to see JJB responding with a robust big effort display against Bradford. Still made some missed tackles but made up for it with his carries busts, clean breaks and top metres

Why is it 'good to see' something people have a right to expect?

Jones-Buchanan making a big effort kind of goes without saying doesn't it. The effort was never in doubt (IMO), decision making and technique has been the recent issue. It's possible to be too enthusiastic in defence where the need is for a collective co-ordinated effort rather than a one-man charge.

JJB had an off day against Wigan last week and was critcised for it. Therefore I commented that it was 'good to see JJB responding with a robust big effort display against Bradford". JJB has consistently made much bigger efforts than most of his forward colleagues over a number of years typified by his Player of the year award last season.

Against Bradford JJB produced a bigger effort than his colleagues once again, making 148 metres and with his "one man charges" made 3 clean breaks and 6 tackle busts in addition to 27 tackles......only old man JP and youngster Ward coming close. If you believe that "people have a right to expect" this level of effort then where are your comments on those that didn't reach this level?

IMO JJB has struggled with match fitness and form since his injury lay off and has maybe tried a bit too hard to regain his timing. Taking into consideration also that if, as is rumoured, he was asked to take on a specific defensive role against Wigan to mark the elusive Tomkins, it is unreasonable for you to suggest he has issues of technique and decision making. Are you suggesting that he always has had both these "issues"? or are they something he has suddenly aquired?

He missed 5 tackles, following on from 6 missed tackles against Wigan. He would be better off making 22 tackles and missing non.

148 metres is a commendable effort. Although when you take off the two passes that put him clean through gaps from his team mates, and then deduct 2 carries, his metres per carry is again very low.

All that said, but for the defence I thought he had a good game on Friday. But you would have to be pretty biased to not see there is a major problem with his tackling technique at the moment.

Quote ="Juan Cornetto"JJB had an off day against Wigan last week and was critcised for it. Therefore I commented that it was 'good to see JJB responding with a robust big effort display against Bradford". JJB has consistently made much bigger efforts than most of his forward colleagues over a number of years typified by his Player of the year award last season.'" Did the stats support your view Jones-Buchanan had an off day V Wigan? Have you commented on his actual performance V Bradford or just his stats V Bradford? Quote ="Juan Cornetto"Against Bradford JJB produced a bigger effort than his colleagues once again, making 148 metres and with his "one man charges" made 3 clean breaks and 6 tackle busts in addition to 27 tackles......only old man JP and youngster Ward coming close. If you believe that "people have a right to expect" this level of effort then where are your comments on those that didn't reach this level?'" Is this view based on the performance or on the stats of the performance? The Opta stats here : www.superleague.co.uk/match_report/7589 show how Bradford have been credited with four try assists despite only scoring three tries so 100% bullet-proof as ever. Quote ="Juan Cornetto"IMO JJB has struggled with match fitness and form since his injury lay off and has maybe tried a bit too hard to regain his timing. Taking into consideration also that if, as is rumoured, he was asked to take on a specific defensive role against Wigan to mark the elusive Tomkins, it is unreasonable for you to suggest he has issues of technique and decision making. Are you suggesting that he always has had both these "issues"? or are they something he has suddenly aquired?'" Unless Tomkins plays for all Leeds' recent opponents I'd say it's a technique issue that needs working on. Charging out of a defensive line trying to make a hero play is often easily defeated by a pass releasing a runner through the gap left unattended.

Quote ="Juan Cornetto"JJB had an off day against Wigan last week and was critcised for it. Therefore I commented that it was 'good to see JJB responding with a robust big effort display against Bradford". JJB has consistently made much bigger efforts than most of his forward colleagues over a number of years typified by his Player of the year award last season.'" Did the stats support your view Jones-Buchanan had an off day V Wigan? Have you commented on his actual performance V Bradford or just his stats V Bradford? Quote ="Juan Cornetto"Against Bradford JJB produced a bigger effort than his colleagues once again, making 148 metres and with his "one man charges" made 3 clean breaks and 6 tackle busts in addition to 27 tackles......only old man JP and youngster Ward coming close. If you believe that "people have a right to expect" this level of effort then where are your comments on those that didn't reach this level?'" Is this view based on the performance or on the stats of the performance? The Opta stats here : www.superleague.co.uk/match_report/7589 show how Bradford have been credited with four try assists despite only scoring three tries so 100% bullet-proof as ever. Quote ="Juan Cornetto"IMO JJB has struggled with match fitness and form since his injury lay off and has maybe tried a bit too hard to regain his timing. Taking into consideration also that if, as is rumoured, he was asked to take on a specific defensive role against Wigan to mark the elusive Tomkins, it is unreasonable for you to suggest he has issues of technique and decision making. Are you suggesting that he always has had both these "issues"? or are they something he has suddenly aquired?'" Unless Tomkins plays for all Leeds' recent opponents I'd say it's a technique issue that needs working on. Charging out of a defensive line trying to make a hero play is often easily defeated by a pass releasing a runner through the gap left unattended.

Well Ablett is top of the missed tackle league at Leeds with Sinfield 2nd. If you are putting in a regular high number of tackles per game it is likely you will also have a higher number of misses too. It is no coincidence that our top tacklers Delaney, JP, Ablett and in most seasons JJB are also first up on a kick chase when missed tackles can often occur and they are more often first in to the tackle or make one on one tackles...and so also have a higher chance of a miss being awarded when a colleague gets the tackle stat for a player they have half stopped.

To suggest we would be better off if these same top tacklers made fewer tackles to avoid their misses assumes a) all the missed tackles were crucial and b) that someone else will undertake to make those newly discarded tackles that often really are crucial.

Why should you want to denigrate JJB's 148 metres? He was backing up and in the right position to go through the gap, as he often does, which is technically good. He makes enough of the hard yards as it is so why does this bit of good decision making not count?

A player of JJB's experience over 1000's of successful tackles knows all about tackling technique. It is not something you forget. I re1peat IMO his timing and full match fitness have not fully recovered since his in jury layoff as was JP's and McGuire's.

As usual tvoc 'plays the slippery eel' and fails to answer questions but still asks his own questions. Quote ="tvoc"Did the stats support your view Jones-Buchanan had an off day V Wigan? Have you commented on his actual performance V Bradford or just his stats V Bradford?.'" The missed tackle stat does support my view (as did my eyes) and yes if you care to look back on this thread I posted my comment on his actual performance Quote ="tvoc"Is this view based on the performance or on the stats of the performance? .'" The stats back up my view that he was M of the M. Quote ="tvoc"The Opta stats here : www.superleague.co.uk/match_report/7589 show how Bradford have been credited with four try assists despite only scoring three tries so 100% bullet-proof as ever. .'" So does this mean all the other stats are wrong and if so please record which stats are wrong in your opinion. Quote ="tvoc"Unless Tomkins plays for all Leeds' recent opponents I'd say it's a technique issue that needs working on. Charging out of a defensive line trying to make a hero play is often easily defeated by a pass releasing a runner through the gap left unattended.'" You in your experience choose to say it is a technique issue which I can understand. But as I have said already, IMO I do not believe a player who has made 1000's of sucessful tackles over many years forgets his technique. I think he has not got his timing right neither is he fully match fit since returning from injury. This is quite normal and has been the same for JP and McGuire and many others. I do not think JJB has been "trying to make a hero play" and this comment is unkind. He may also have been trying a bit too hard and the body has not matched the intention or it maybe he is used to leading the defensive line previously and others are not keeping up with him. Only my opinion mind.

As usual tvoc 'plays the slippery eel' and fails to answer questions but still asks his own questions. Quote ="tvoc"Did the stats support your view Jones-Buchanan had an off day V Wigan? Have you commented on his actual performance V Bradford or just his stats V Bradford?.'" The missed tackle stat does support my view (as did my eyes) and yes if you care to look back on this thread I posted my comment on his actual performance Quote ="tvoc"Is this view based on the performance or on the stats of the performance? .'" The stats back up my view that he was M of the M. Quote ="tvoc"The Opta stats here : www.superleague.co.uk/match_report/7589 show how Bradford have been credited with four try assists despite only scoring three tries so 100% bullet-proof as ever. .'" So does this mean all the other stats are wrong and if so please record which stats are wrong in your opinion. Quote ="tvoc"Unless Tomkins plays for all Leeds' recent opponents I'd say it's a technique issue that needs working on. Charging out of a defensive line trying to make a hero play is often easily defeated by a pass releasing a runner through the gap left unattended.'" You in your experience choose to say it is a technique issue which I can understand. But as I have said already, IMO I do not believe a player who has made 1000's of sucessful tackles over many years forgets his technique. I think he has not got his timing right neither is he fully match fit since returning from injury. This is quite normal and has been the same for JP and McGuire and many others. I do not think JJB has been "trying to make a hero play" and this comment is unkind. He may also have been trying a bit too hard and the body has not matched the intention or it maybe he is used to leading the defensive line previously and others are not keeping up with him. Only my opinion mind.

As the mayor of Crazy Town it's perfectly understandable that you would arbitrarily ignore certain aspects of a players statistical input in order to negatively asses a players statistical input.

For me JJB is one of the key players in the success of this Leeds side, like all players he will have peaks and troughs in his form. As fans we need to accept that no matter how popular a particular player is. Grasping at straws - he was supposed to marking Tomkins - to explain his poor performance does no one any favours.

Stats can be made to say anything depending on how you interpret them - the difficulty is weighting each element to get an overall rating - I see the margin metre has bitten the dust!!

I haven't watched the full Bulls game, but some of our 'defence' was really, really poor. If I were coaching against leeds I'd make the pass back inside a staple every set, because we have lazy inside defenders on virtually every play.

I won't bag JJB individually, as I'll happily admit I was one of those calling for him to be shipped out early in his career.

Based on their ability (this week) to award more try assists than tries scored I'd personally find it difficult to place much credibility on any of the figures that I couldn't also personally verify.

Such errors should be completely unacceptable to statisticians - although in fairness the error could lay with the website (I've no idea) but as they produce the material to this end user the problem doesn't go away. The Opta stat threads on here have highlighted several other discrepancies in areas that should be above suspicion.

__________

It would be interesting to know what Opta consider a made or a missed tackle. Without that information even commenting on their counts seems a little irrelevant. For example in the home game V St Helens when Sinfield failed to lay a hand on his man as Shenton went around him with ease was that recorded as a missed tackle? I don't know and I suspect nobody else who posts on here does either.

I've seen glaring mistakes in the Opta stats in League Express too so I'd put the blame with Opta rather than the website.

From what I've seen of Opta stats you can only really use them to form a general idea of what's gone on, rather than anything exact or definitive.

Don't know whether this is because of the ineptitude of Opta's statisticians or Opta's apathy towards rugby league but it's pretty poor either way.

Players, officials and statisticians are all human and so will make mistakes as will we fans in our opinions. These performance records can never be 100% accurate for many reasons and with no exact criteria as a basis cannot be regarded as a science. So given that there are errors in the exact stats (and I agree it would be better if they were accurrate) what they do still show over a period of time are trends in performance despite not being exact. It is this information that coaches find very useful and what we can all still use to show a players average performance or lack of.

I too would like to know Opta's, and your, definition of a missed tackle? Likewise the definition of metres made.....does this for example include a Web like crabbing sideways accross the field? Also do forward passes and bad passes count as errors or do they only count against the player that lost possession?

I have always believed that minutes played is an important stat and should be recorded because without this, exact comparisons between players is unfair.

They try to count metres made forwards. One of the bigger problems with that is kickoff returns - players should look to make 15-20M as a minimum from where they get the ball, and if as with most teams you have one 'go-to' prop on each side of the field, their stats will always look better than without them. The other bugbear I have is 3rd/4th man into tackles getting credited with a tackle - Nathan Hindmarsh used to be a machine but nowadays his tackle count is hugely inflated by late efforts 3rd/4th man in. Very hard for the stas guys to add those sorts of nuances though.

I've often thought that the meters made stat can be a little misrepresentative, as BrisbaneRhino said, in a high scoring game it depends which side of the sticks a particular prop stands at for the kick off.

A right footed kicker will often kick off to his left - if the same prop is stood at that side for each kick off then they will have a much higher 'meters made' stat than there counterpart stood at the other side of the sticks.

Game stats are never to be taken literally and should be used as a rough guide.

Assuming, I hope, that we can agree that counting things and adding the numbers up doesn't make you a statistician, how many statisticians do you think Opta employ? I have never seen anything from them that, even assuming (probably erroneously) the data was gathered correctly, would require a statistician to produce.

Even if the figures were accurate, they can only ever be part of the information you base a player's performance and worth on. They are only ever useful when set carefully in the right context. As an example, sometimes differences in stats may well simply be revealing differences in the roles two players are asked to play. They also take no account of the capacity to produce crucial interventions at crucial times. Yet those are the things that win matches. A tackle effected on your own goal line is of far more interest to me than a miss as the full back crabs across his own 10m line with plenty of other tacklers on hand.

I only use 'statistician' as a loose generic term when referring to the Opta counts.

I maintain that any numbers collected need to be accurate to lend credibility to the output. If it's possible for Opta to credit a forty-twenty off the diminuative boot of Rob Burrow to the giant frame of Ian Kirke (and it's still showing in the totals - I've just checked) then personally I need more than Opta as a source of accurate information. Unfortunately they're the only kids in town for certain aspects, which is why I record them but rarely comment on them.