I don't know what Peter Smith is watching sometimes with some of his scores.

Matt Shaw's are usually worse.

Yep. Saints have built their unprecedented success by playing an extremely aggressive style of Rugby, often to the very edge of the law. Most times they stay within it, last night they didn't and were rightly punished. The game doesn't need creative players being clobbered off the ball, regardless of which team is doing it. Smith's strategy of going round rather than through, probably contributed to those late tackles. Credit to him.

Its almost as if it’s two different incidents and not comparable, I admitted i was wrong on the Welsby incident after rewatching it.

There is only one club rattled, look at the pathetic actions of your players and fans after the game.

I was more surprised by the players reaction than the fans. It was only a reg season game, not sure why someone like Percival was making a scene after the game.
Fans reaction was really poor too but small minority? You’ll obs no more as were at the game…..

It was a small minority as it usually is with these things, but there were some very very angry Fans outside the ground, first time I’ve felt like it could ‘kick off’ for a long time.

You are right though the players were pathetic, look at Hurrell throwing his toys out and Percival having to get a talking to from Walmsley.

Hurrell's was a red card. Not as bad as Tet's hit on him last year but it was late and a shoulder charge to the chin. Myler's lucky not to have got badly hurt, and Wilkin's comments were disgraceful.

Walters was a penalty for me. But little flare-ups were happening all game and the ref had warned both captains about players not running in.

Certainly be interesting at the disciplinary this week. Last year Macdonald would have got a ban for the attempt to stop a try as well.

Walters incident is a grey area if its slowed down does look like he's trying to wrap arm but can't fully due to Cameron Smith making Simultaneous contact on Matty Lees. But for me if 'shoulder charges' are used like that I'm fine with it shoulder on shoulder equals some big hits and are not dangerous for players safety imo


Hurrell shoulder charge is a red card all day & all season long. He's made direct contact too Myler's head with shoulder which IS dangerous for player safety. It's not rocket science imo.

Won't stop saints players and fans trying to conflate the 2 as they stamp their feet.

It was a weird one. Thought it was supposed to be party atmosphere celebrating WCC? Can’t imagine a regular season loss would have triggered such anger. Was there more to it?

It was nice to see Leeds throw it around as I felt we went a bit one up on the previous weeks.

Feel like Lisone was dropped for being unfit and likewise, Leeming for being poor. O'Connor made the team play better and helped Sezer have a good game. Was also nice to see McDonnell get a game: he looked solid.

I really like Holroyd. Sangare has been great so far and Walters looked handy. With Oledzki to come back, Tetevano going ok and hopefully Lisone to get fit, we could have some good options.

MacDonald looks very dangerous in attack and him alongside Newman will change the whole complex of our backs. Newman takes us up two gears.

I would not have complained if Walters had been penalised but glad to see he didn't as Welsby always tries to ref games. It would only have been given because of Welsby's actions.

Hurrell's was a stone wall red. Late, shoulder, direct to the head and with force. Stupid.

I thought Matautia's would have been a red had it been last season too as it was very dangerous. He seems a bit of a grub.

In terms of Kendall, potentially we got away with one, however, barring the yellow card, we got absolutely nothing from him in the first 30 minutes. Every 50:50 call went Saints favour like it normally does. Saints are a tough enough team to beat without getting any decisions as well. Teams get pinged for holding down, offsides etc. that Saints seem to get away with. Its as if they can't do anything wrong.

Hope we aren't going to start giving an 8 point try every time someone touches a players head or there will be one every match.

I am not keen on the set restart rule as referees can get away with it without any criticism whereas they used to get a reaction from the crowd when an incorrect penalty was given. I think Leeds got a set restart on the zero tackle last night which had no barring for us, whereas Saints get theres on the 3rd / 4th / 5th tackle.

Missed the game live I was on my way back from Spain. When I watched it back, the biggest difference was the intent, with the ball we showed a lot more intent to move it around and without it we had a lot more intent in our defence. Still a number of things to work on, my mate Derrell still gives me heart failure when he has the ball, we still clock off every now and again at marker (Smith for the Lussick try), and we get split by a change of line (Sangare for Dodd) too easy.

Overall massive progress from the first two weeks, MacDonald looks dangerous, Sezer showed he can do it when he gets good ball and is motivated, Sangare and Holroyd looked good and Tetevano had his best game in living memory. On to Wakey, we need to build on this and put them to the sword to recover some of the lost PD so far this year.

Good round up tbh.
Having Holroyd back and some aggressive running from the Sangare etc.
Once Oledski is back and Lisone fit we should not only be finally matching big teams,but beating them for spells throughout the games.
That has a big effect on teams over 80 mins. They will tire make mistakes / give penalties and concede ground.

Well happy with that result and the performance.
Tetavano and Smith who get some grief on here stood up well along with Holroyd, Sangare and O`Connor.
Martin back to his best and McDonnel solid.
The halves 100% better than the last 2 weeks and both our centres played well.
Agree Fusitua looks soft to me and slow.
The Walters incident could easily be a penalty and the Hurrell one definitely a red.
No idea why Saints were so rattled and as their coach said their discipline let them down.
Maybe they thought we would just roll over and let them win?
Kendall made some poor decisions but like last week when Taylor should have been binned and we win the game, we got the refs swings and roundabouts lottery this time.

Makes Phil Clarke look nonpartisan! Should bin him off and let Kyle Amor do a bit more. He called the Wire game even when Salford were still winning!

After watching again with a little less passion running through my veins and a little more analytical.
Walters incident was a penalty but refs view I understand why not, one we got away with. On the whole Kendall was Kendall and a few bad decisions both ways. Hurell a red without doubt.
First half we were responsible for 4 out of 5 tries, cut that out and we may become a team to reckon with. Defence is far too flimsy right now but fixable. Sangare good going forward, naive in defence. Hard to say about Leeming, never got the chance to show what we would have been like with him at DH. Sezer a different player this week. Was just saying half way through the first half that we needed Martin to show some form and that was one of the major differences when he started to play well.

Don’t know why Saints got so rattled, I guess emotions got the better of them, been a long few weeks. Giving them the benefit of the doubt and they will probably be the standard to achieve, however this is where we get to see how good Wellens is going to be

The bawling on RedVee is as good as the result. Apparently Myler is a grub for milking getting hit in the head with Hurrell's shoulder! The post from someone who "talked to a Leeds fan" who backed up every moan they had throughout the game is hilarious! Of course you did son, of course you did! I spoke to a Saints fan who said we were by far the better team, that Welsby is a man-child, Hurrell should be banned for 10 games and Jon Wilkin is an embarrassment to commentating!

Spot on.
The interesting comments about Sezer is whether he plays better with O'Connor at 9. I guess we'll see in the coming weeks.

I know it's been a tough few weeks for Saints, but some cracks on Friday night.
I really do think Wire will run them close this year. Their pack is definitely a match.
As much as I'd like Wire to go another 70 years without winning the top prize, it would be better for the game than Saints 5 in a row.

The most important thing for us now is that we back it up with a good win against Wakey.
Very different pressure when we're expected to win.

I watched that this morning, absolute gold.

My favourite bit was ‘Kendall has to be stood down next week'.

As a previous poster said, Leeds got absolutely nothing until the 50/50 Walters call, and deserved a bit of luck.
I’ve been in a bit of a sulk over the professional game for quite some time, but, and call me fickle, the late drama on Friday night reignited a bit of love for it.

All in all, it seems that they didn’t like the fact that we had the audacity to go there and turn them over.

Some of the Saints fans are behaving like Wigan used to.

The lads on the redvee segment just embarrassed themselves. All they needed were tin foil hats and the lunacy would be complete. Kendall got a few decisions wrong but both sinbins and the red were entirely warranted. Its not just 'bad discipline' they were all dirty play, and Hurrell's was pretty bad. Not as bad as Tet's last year, but a definite send off and suspension to follow.

I did think and still think Walters' was a bit of a shoulder but it at least wasn't high. Macdonald's pulling on Percival's head as he scored wasn't great either, although you could argue he wasn't exactly sure what was going on by that point.

I thought Kendall reffed OK to be honest. He communicated well with players all night and I thought he was very clear about what he'd do if players ran in, and then followed through.

If Welsby hadn't have run in it was play on, Saints ball 20 yards from our line with a full set.
Maybe criticise Welsby ahead of the ref

The saints fans and players meltdown has been absolutely glorious

I went to the game on Friday night but was sitting in the main stand with a few mates who were saints fans.

Overall I thought saints looks tired, we looked like we had a more clear game plan and we executed reasonably well. I thought generally we looked more dangerous than they did, it seemed fairly even in terms of the grunt up front, they didn’t have the normal bench impact due to players being out.

On the cards I called them all when I saw them live and on video I think exactly the same. Inside pressure is one thing, hitting ball players when they have passed the ball is another. The Hurrell card is just a straight red. The talk of myler faking it or dipping into the tackle is embarrassing. On Walters I thought that probably was a shoulder charge, it wasn’t high and if they had got a penalty for the challenge I would have said fair enough. Welsby and saints ran in and had that kind of behaviour all night. They are not gracious in defeat, they don’t like it when they struggle to overpower you and they didn’t like that Leeds were bang up for it and didn’t mind giving a few big hits back.

If we can fix our defence up a bit that would be good. The lussick push over was soft. The Dodd score from the drop in as all our own doing. Dodd step and over was again something you think you could fix up and stop. That’s 18 points and in those high end games we need to minimise or stop those easy points for the other side.

I liked Walters and sangare from the bench, real impact! I think McDonnell was good and probably an all round better bench option that Donaldson. Nene has real strike and when Newman gets back if we can keep them fit we will have strike both sides.

One thing I don’t get it the anger towards Leeds from the saints fans. Leeds didn’t make Saints have bad discipline, the Walters tackle was probably a pen but wasn’t high and I don’t really think you could talk about it as a card. I was being told they didn’t care as it’s March but on the other hand they looked beyond angry and upset they lost. Just a bit strange all round.

I would hope we continue to build and do not drop away next week. As players come back we should hopefully get more competition and if players don’t play well somebody comes in and gets a chance.

Excellent post ^