We need some stats if we are going to unravel the problem.

What are the highest amount of penalties we concede?

Dissent, lying on, high tackles offisde?

You don't really need stats to know the general area Leeds (and all teams) concede the most penalties in.

Interference at the play the ball.

On refelection, should Tony Smith have been sacked in 06? 3rd in the league, out of the playoffs in the 1st round to Warrington and mullered in the cup semi by Giants?

Sack the coach. Wait cut some more key players from his squad, don't replace them, then sack him.

I don't understand people syaing McLennan should sort the discipline out. Surely it's him that has put together this game plan that Leeds seem to use all the time now, i.e. slow the PTB down at every single tackle. To be honest I'm amazed you don't get penalised more as you hold down, mess about and lay on every single time. It's all the more irritating because Sinfield and Diskin moan to the ref constantly about the opposition laying on when they're not (at least not to the extent Leeds are).

I know you'll say I'm just bleating because I'm a Saints fan but I'm not. Leeds have loads of fast skillful players and don't need to play that way, it would be a far more exciting game if they just lpayed the way they used to.

Why would we ever think that you were a bleating Saints fan


After all you havn't much to moan about in your post against the Rhinos have you?



I would have to disagree with your initial post, and say that you are in fact a moaning Saints fan, who still cant get their head around the fact that the Rhino's have whooped your asses for the past 2 years at OT!

Thanks for responding to the point I made.

Asked and answered in another thread.

My issue with Mclennan is not based upon results at all.

Smith had no pack in 2006 but his team didn't have a fundemental problem obvious to all that the coach couldn't fix.

Unlike McLenann's team this year (and last).

its no good blaming the players as if they alone are conspiring to undermine bluey ! This is the same coach who's Leeds team have started playing his spoiling game who had New Zealand doing the exact same tactics when they beat the aussies in the world cup. The Leeds club always played hard but fair rugby its a shame they feel they need to adopt this style of play to suceed now.

Discipline was poor from us again and does need to be addressed. Despite last week, I'm increasinly less convinced we're going to get it cracked by the play-offs. I'm not surprised Wigan dominated us so much in the second half with the penalties we gave away.

Having said that, at the game (as opposed to watching it on sky+) I did feel that he was more lenient to Wigan at times. For example at numerous PTB's Wigans markers weren't square often looking like they were stood next to each other.

I couldn't argue against the penalties that were awarded against Leeds though.

And the best team did win on the day.

Disgusting, dirty, disgraceful, ill disciplined team. The only thing you've got going for you is the gorgeous Danny Buderus!

ok luvvie
now go and get the yorkshire puddings in t oven

Our discipline seems to have a direct relationship to the score board – I give you Wakefield where we were on the rack and our penalty count exponentially increased.

Again at Wigan as the deficit increase so did the penalties. This would be symptomatic of an attitude problem that seems to be running through the camp and it is down to the head coach to resolve this.

At times we look like a spoilt child that has a bit of a strop when thing don’t go their way. If we curb this petulance then we wouldn’t spiral into decline half way through the game then suddenly realise (usually too late) that they need to get their fingers out and start playing again.

Simple equation – stop conceding penalties = stop conceding points, hardly rocket science.

Not something that Bluey appears to understand though.

It's not just the penalties that cause this problem though it's also not respecting the possession when we have it.

The spiral started more with the cheap possession we turned over which then led to cheap penalties as we spent less and less time with the ball in hand.

We did give away a lot of cheap ball on Friday which exasperated the problem further but it’s not as easily fixed as ill discipline.

I completely agree.

We finally got our kicking game right on Friday night but we could'nt turn it into pressure as we gave stupid pentalties away that let the Wigan players march up the field untouched.

It can't be the refs fault if it happens every week, home or away and with all refs in Super League. There is a serious problem here that needs to be addressed asap!

We let teams back into games when we could close them out. Wakefield and Hull FC home and away recently are 2 that spring to mind. Ok, we won those games but points difference could cost us the Minor Premiership!

it seems to me that the worst offender re discipline is JJB - although I would be interested to see who's given away the most penalties. So maybe he should be dropped from the squad as a lesson to the others. If I m wrong about this apologies to JJB who I am sure always looks out for my comments.

Without stats (tvoc…) I believe our worst offender is Sinny!!!

I have no idea but it seems to me that some of the worst offenders are McGuire, JJB (like u say), Bailey and maybe Burgess (although I do love the way he is playing at the moment!)...oh maybe even Senior

Another thing, it was not going to be long before Smith got pulled up on the penalty he gave away. Every time he gets tackled he shrugs the player off with his elbows then immediately raises his arms to the ref! Hope he has learnt his lesson!

On Friday it was knock on (Senior), knock on (Senior), run into touch (Donald) on Leeds' first three sets of possession.

If you don't clear your half on the end of a completed set with a kick then you put yourself under needless pressure. If you don't complete any of your first three sets in a game then you're still on the coach.

McClennan's not stupid (?) so how did Leeds start the 2nd period. Burrow knocking on, on half way.

Leeds didn't concede a penalty until the 8th minute of the first half or until 14th minute of the second half but they'd turned over possession without getting to a kick three times by then in each half.

I think the penalties do flow from fatigue (as they did on Friday) and not completing sets on our terms plays a bit part in that also.

Interesting point and that backs up my view - which is counter to Gareth's - that its not the coach's over emotion that's a problem. If it were you'd expect penalties to be conceded from the outset - and they're not - and you'd expect a number of penalties for foul play to be high - and they're not.

The penalties for interference seem to have become an automatic response to perceived adversity by a number of the players. Its possible that that's the coach's doing - that he tells them to interfere and slow things down whenever the opposition seem to get a roll on and that they continue with the policy (and by inference defend it in post match interviews) despite conceding penalties because they believe in it. If so both the coach and the players are idiots for continuing with it as its clearly counter productive.

In 2007 Leeds had the 9th worst discipline in Superleague and won the Grand Final. Last year (under a new coach) Leeds again had the 9th worst discipline in the competition and again won the Grand Final. This year they have the second worst discipline.

I'm convinced this stems from the players not the coach. Its their arrogance and failure to dominate games in the way they feel they should be that causes the response. Two time champions justifiably feel they should be dominating games but probably can't maintain the mental intensity needed to do so for a 3rd year - this results in frustration.

Where the coach is maybe culpable is in not stamping it out but we're not privy to what is said to players and have no idea whether it can be changed without the team collectively being taken down a peg or two by a season of relative failure.

I'd have agreed with Gareth that Mcguire, after Friday, seemed an obvious candidate to make an example of - 4 penalties and without the excuse of fatigue that the forwards might reasonably claim - until I looked at his stats. He'd only conceded 5 in the previous 19 rounds.

You would be correct.

The top 10 offenders, with average penalties conceded per game are:

Kevin Sinfield 0.98
Ryan Bailey 0.85
Carl Ablett 0.71
Lee Smith 0.69
Luke Burgess 0.65
Jamie Jones-Buchannan 0.65
Danny Buderus 0.60
Brent Webb 0.56
Keith Senior 0.56
Jamie Peacock 0.55


That takes no account of game time and excludes Friday. Some interesting absentees as well as interesting inclusions.

The absence of Ian Kirke makes dropping Sinfield or Ablett difficult and, at present, its difficult to drop Lee Smith without playing another youngster.

The penalties near the end of the game (when admittedly the game was all over) were nothing to do with fatigue. Two I remember were McGuire not rolling away but thrashing around without attempting to get off Riddell, and Leuluai (IIRC) grabbing a leg as he went to marker, causing the Wigan player to stumble. Thos sorts of thing are nothing to do with fatigue. My perspective is more along the lines of petulance, as with Puig.

What could he do, Riddel is such a lump of lard, that when on top of him, mcguire couldn't get his hands or his feet on the floor to help him get off