Hopefully we can continue the solid start but Huddersfield do seem to be our bogey side.

Slightly off topic does anybody else think its a bit strange we are on sky 6 weeks in a row?

Nah I just think it's how the fixture have landed. Looking at this week most neutrals would say this game should be on Sky, plus games bs Wigsn and Wire coming up are shoe-ins every year. Catalans obviously have all their home games shown and the Cas game is part of the Easter weekend. Only one you could argue with is Hull but they usually like to show Hull/Leeds clashes.

No. Fully justified we weren't sky material for the first 2 rounds. Pending few fixtures should make good viewing and saves me another trip to Hull ! bonus.

The sky schedule was always going to throw up runs like this once the Teams were cut to 12 that's before considering our AWAY fixtures are considered t.v games for part of Skys coverage for the respective Home side.

Confirmed - Leuluai back in, Burrow and Walters miss out from the 19.

Seriously?? Lee is rubbish, agreed, but I like Ellis a lot.

Well we got the 2 points but we were woeful in defence at times until we stepped it up near the end.Ruck is so messy and our goaline effort needs a serious work over.

As a neutral, I thought that post match whinge by Brian Macdermott to be very disingenuous, Both teams were messing around at the ruck. For me MoM was Ward.

Brilliant at times, and woeful at others.

Aiton, Ward, Briscoe, Hall had brilliant games, and a good effort from Achurch. Not sure on some of the others. Thought Hardaker and Sinfield were really poor.

The positive for me is that we found a way of taking the 2 points, on that evidence we have rediscovered our previous ability to edge a game where we weren't on great form. something that eluded us last season. My concern out of tonight's game was we looked defensively frail and that Zac seemed to have a mare. 3 from 3 is a good start, but we need to tighten up in defence if we are going to continue that winning start into the next few games.

Not sure it would have made too much difference, but Hudds should have definitely had a pen on the last break.

Hall was given the credit for keeping the winger out in the corner, but while I thought Hall did a fair job in defence, in truth we just got very lucky that his elbow touched the line just before the ball was grounded.

achurch hesitated when the line was gaping. poor play.
hardaker had a mare.
game looked to be too fast for peacock.
McGuire took the leadership role as sinfield wasn't there either.
cuthberson looked good again.

we looked great on the fringes and down the middle but looked lightweight down the middle. that's one area that needs addessing

Our goal line defense and line speed were poor, and our discipline at times was very poor.
From an attacking perspective we're getting better and some of our combinations our coming together.
Individually, Aiton was (one bad defensive read apart) outstanding and hopefully if he can stay healthy and consistent he could finally be the solution we've desperately needed at dummy half. All the back rowers had very good games, Ablett had his best game of the season, and Achurch and Ward look so threatening, I could Gotcha jizz in his pants from my sofa when Ward offloaded to Briscoe for his try.
I also think JJB deserves a lot of praise for the way he's started the season.

Some of the negatives, as already stated, our goal line defense was poor and all of the trys we conceded were very soft indeed. I actually thought we defended on OK in Hudds half but whenever they got within 40 metres of our line we seemed to hang back and give them too much space to play.
Our organisation on the last play and our kicking game in general needs a lot of work, it just seems so speculative, surely they must have seen how effective and dangerous the NRL sides were in this area and the variety they have to their kicking game.
Individually, Hardaker probably had his worst game since moving to FB. and he still doesn't pass the ball enough IMO. Jake Connor on the opposite side was excellent for Hudds I thought.
Sutcliffe's inclusion was pointless in the end, and when he did come on our right edge was thrown all out of whack.

Overall, it feels good to get that one in the bag especially given our terrible record against them in the last few years. We will have to improve though because I'm sure Hull will have watched that and I doubt they'll be quaking in their boots.

Thought we made much harder work of that than we should have. Really poor decision not to go for goal under the posts at 22-12 after a long spell of really good but tiring goal line defence by us. Instead of 24-12 and a breather, we bomb the try and Hudds go upfield to score for 22-18 and game on.

Alton, Ward, Cuthbertson very good.

Thought we looked fine down the middle for the opening 25 mins, we made yards comfortably.

Our problem, and it was similar to the Widnes game, is when the game becomes niggly, disjointed and an arm wrestle the team as a whole seem to get frustrated. We need to learn to either
A, stop the game descending into that
B, not let it rattle us and knock us off our stride of what we want to do.

Some good parts. The backs were given more ball and the workload seemed well shared. Whilst Burrow is a legend at this club, the positive effect on the balance and workload of the side in his absence is quite considerable.

Would go between Aiton and Hall for MOM. However Aiton being one of those who got rattled in those last 10 mins of the first half and that embarrassing dive for the hand to the face means I'll go for Hall. Ablett after an average start in the first two games looked a lot better tonight.

Also, with Lunt's contract up at the end of the season, good to see him playing for a deal with Leeds with that last play

Ward, Hall, Ablett, JJB, Cuthbertson, Aiton, Briscoe, McGuire and Moon were our best players IMO in a scrappy sort of a game. The ruck was terrible and several Huddersfield players were allowed to move yards off the mark and both sides were messing about. I thought Leeds scored some excellent tries and Huddersfield scored some soft tries so the result was fair.

Three out of three is not bad and we can expect plenty of improvement still to come.

Just been on Totalrlfansforum I know there are some genuine Leeds dislikers and now they're accusing Leeds of Soccer style diving and Bentham gave Leeds everything

Good means we're worrying opposition fans again. Been a few years!

To be fair Aiton's theatrics were embarrassing (although stupid of the Hudds players to give him that chance to go down).

As for Bentham, I think we did get the better of some 50/50 calls, as usually happens as the home side but nothing majorly bad from him, perhaps he blew for a few soft ones for both sides.

I too thought that it was a bit rich for McDermott to go on about messing at the play the ball when it seemed to me we were just as guilty.
I thought Ablett was good, Hall caught every high ball aimed at him, as did Hardaker apart from one but his ball retention in the tackle was poor on a number of occasions which cost us.
Peacock does look as if the years are finally catching up with him & Leuluai isn't earning another year yet for me.
Sinfield's kick offs were a major disappointment , maybe time to hand that role over to Hardaker.
All in all good to see a proper game & The Glenlivet went down well on a cold night.
Can't wait for the Wigan game.

Its possible that Peacock's decline could be more rapid than people expect. He said that preseason convinced him that this should be his last season, and he really is at the age when the decline in athleticism is (usually) pretty steep. As is Leuluai. We've just got to hope that he's just taking time to warm up.

I dunno BR, a couple of daft penalties and offloads aside I thought Peacock was pretty good.

In fact that could go for the whole team performance too.


On Aiton, his theatrics (2nd one, 1st one I thought was genuine) are a bit embarrassing but unfortunately it happens regularly. Whether it's players diving at the play the ball or holding a defenders arm in etc it's all cheating. I don't blame the players, in the same way as I don't blame Rooney for his recent dive. He was fouled, but without falling over Rooney wouldn't have got the penalty. The same goes for Aiton.
That aside I thought he was superb and I think our game suffered when he was off the pitch. More of the same please Mr Aiton.

To be fair are we judging Peacock by normal prop standards, or by his usual freakish standards.

For a normal prop, tonight he was ok/average. Going by Peacock's past far from normal prop performances he was poor.....there in lays the difference.

I haven't heard Mcdermott's post match, but if he's blaming the officials for our mistakes it's a bit poor. The penalties we gave away on the 4th tackle were penalties also the ref isn't at fault when we knock. Both teams did just as much messing at the play the ball. I'm happy to excuse Aiton's dive, as McGilvary does one every game with less contact. Also it made up for the shot Wardle put on Sinfield.

I'd of liked to see Achurch go in to second row instead of loose forward. I think he'd of really opened them up down one of the wings. Also when we get to the dry season i'm really hoping Sinny can connect with Cuthbertson's offloads better. I'll let him off with the ball been greasy tonight.



The thing i'm most positive about is we dug deep and ground out a victory when we needed to. This was something we couldn't seem to do last year. Admittedly we shouldn't of been in that position, but still it's a good confidence boost for the team.

To be fair to McDermott I don't think he was blaming our errors on the reffing but was more a moan about holding down/interference at the play the ball in general. I also think he was probably getting his point in to the refs after Anderson apparently did at half time.