I would love to know what people see in Lilley cos i see nothing? Never saw the kid Saturday apart from 1 nice kick in 2nd half and kicking the conversions. Not singling him out as it was his 1st game and he was behind a badly beaten pack so difficult for any half but what does he bring? Hes not an organiser, not creative, is very slow and defensively poor in my eyes yet people seem to love him.

Maybe its me but what am i missing? I know the response will include people like Sinfield and Maguire but hes not in the same league as those lads.

like I said Marty he's been hit and miss. all I ask is give him 5 games. then we'll know one way or the other

He’s also barely played any games in the last 12 months hardly a recipe for finding any form. It’s a problem that exists right through from the academies with some players being held back in their development through simply not enough/any game time.

I get thats he hardly played but im asking what potential do people see in him that i cant see that if hes given a run in the team he would offer anything??

because he's had the odd really good game and someone saw enough to give him a long term deal.
let's have a look before we sign someone from outside is surely a no brainer. especially as this season's a write off anyway.

I am sure nobody at the club has written this season off yet.

Which shows how out of touch they are unfortunately. There is a very fine line between confidence and arrogance.

if Leeds can get past Leigh, get a good s/f draw then Wembley is possible. the GF? not a chance for me

I agree but Leigh is a big hurdle IMO with our current form and injuries. IF we were to get past Leigh then the SF draw everyone will want is the winner of Huddersfield and Catalan but again on current form both those teams would be a much bigger challenge for us than they would have been 3 months ago

An ugly win on Friday and then hope our form improves throughout June and July ready for an August semi-final and hopefully final. Our only hope of silverware this season.

I agree, but if he gets 5-6 game run now with all the injuries and side on the back foot, we still won't know allot, give him 5 games in a side competing and on the front foot and that will tell us more. On form alone good as moon is he does not deserve his starting place when fit, I personnally think Lilley should be in the 17 somewhere from now untill season end then decide whether to keep him or not. Certainly miler looked pretty dangerous playing a bit wider on Saturday and having that bit more space, in that alone lilley gives us that which moon does not.

Myler has played on right edge most of the year. He was no wider Sat bur spent most of his time on the left.

As far as I can recall Lilley only ever had a run of games during the disaster which was 2016. Giving him a few games when the team is playing almost as badly and expecting him to shine simply isn't fair - the club should either ditch him, which would be odd given the contract he's signed, or give him a chance in a team thats going OK. I've no idea whether he'll ever amount to much, but only playing him sporadically and in different positions when most of the team around him is playing awfully is a recipe for giving him no chance at all.

If Moon is back this week he will be straight back in at 6.

no improvement then. and the ineffectual handley stays at 4.

Who was heavely involed in two trys wt the weekend one a superb effort.

Ineffectual he may be, but far more tries scored through left wing/centre than before he moved there.

And missed four tackles with poor efforts. Just to balance it up you understand.

don't rate him sorry. never have. just opinions.
just to state I haven't watched the Catalan game and won't comment on his display good or bad. I'm talking about his season as a whole

This myth about more tries down the left without Moon at centre is just rubbish also. Not happened.

So....Ryan Hall scored 30+ in the four years before Moon arrived. That dropped to 16 in Moon's first year, and in each of his first three seasons (i.e. excluding the disaster of 2016) the Hall-Moon partnership's maximum total was 37 tries between them and Hall's best was 23. I'm not saying he's not a good player but there is actually very strong factual evidence to suggest that he's a poor winger's centre, which anyine who watches him play could see fairly easily IMO.

My only point re Handley was nothing to do with Moon, but rather that since he moved to centre the left side has at least kept scoring tries, in a year when our average tries per game has fallen by 1 per game on last year and is barely higher than 2016 pre Middle 8s.

So it’s about Ryan Hall, a fading winger, not the left hand side? That wasn’t debatable. The point that the left hand side, including centre, scores less with Moon at centre is very debatable. It is also worth considering that the backline as a whole is more dangerous and scores more tries with Moon at centre.

I am not saying he is a wingers centre, to be frank I think that is entirely irrelevant in the modern game, because hardly anyone is, but he certainly creates space and attacking opportunities for the whole back line when he plays there.

Ryan Halks less tries are far more to do with Rysn Hall than they are to do with whom is centre alongside him. This along with less acting kicks to utilise him, a team tactic to go through forwards more, and defensive set ups.

So you're saying Ryan Hall suddenly became a shadow of his former self the year Moon arrived, and yet has excelled for England there until last year, and won MoM at Wembley in 2014? Or that a Leeds team including the same playmakers over the period to 2015 for some inexplicable reason decided they could get more tries elsewhere once Moon arrived?

I'd say the far simpler and more obvious answer is that Joel Moon is a strong running ball hog, who routinely runs lines which leave no space for his winger. He's very effective at it, but he's a shocking wingers centre. The odd thing to me is that when he does run straighter he has all the skills necessary to put his winger away unlike a lot of centres nowadays, and he'd be far more effective at both if he didn't run the same line 90% of the time. It also, to me at least, shows why he's a poor stand off.

spot on

No. I said exactly what I said on the other page, which isn't what you have somehow interpreted, and I thought it was pretty clear. I said that the left hand side did not suffer on Moon playing centre there, only Ryan Hall's individual tries stuttered. That is different to what you were saying, which seems to be all about Ryan Hall. To add to that, far from saying Hall became a shadow of his former self the year Moon arrived, I said he is a fading winger. It is now five seasons since 2014, if you think Ryan Hall is the same player he was then there is no point in talking about it. What Moon provided the backline far exceeds what you are crediting him with, regardless of Ryan Hall.



I think it is more a case that you are living in the past. There isn't that type of centre around now, the whole game isn't played to that way. Hopefully it will return, but you are unfairly tarnishing one player with a myth that others do different. I wasn't defending Joel Moon, I am just stating that you could have put plenty other centres there also, and the result not only might not have been the same, but probably would have been a lot worse of a return on the left hand side.


Edit: Just to back up with a bit of fact, as I said what you were saying was a myth purely on reflection of what I had seen, so thought best to check the facts.

You can see clearly that left hand edge of centre and winger since 2008, tries scored.

2008 21 Hall/Senior
2009 37 Hall/Senior
2010 33 Hall/Senior
2011 32
2012 26
2013 32 When Moon arrived
2014 22 Moon out for period injured
2015 31
2016 9 Disaster for tries all across the park
2017 16 Moon at stand off now, who actually got 15 tries himself

Ryan Hall individual tries started going down in 2012 the year before Moon arrived, Jumped back up in 2014 and 2015 with Moon at centre, and have then gone down hill completely has he has faded as a player, and importantly Sinfield has left the side, which was more important than whom was playing centre. To add to this we also switched our attention in the attacking side to the quality of the right centre in Watkins once Senior had departed.