Thought Sutcliffe ran hard and tackled well, supported well, and made a couple of half breaks. Considering this was a game no half-back broke open, its strange to see Sutcliffe thrown under the bus for it.

That's true. Last season he was defending Hardaker when he was equally bad.

I've no issue with him defending players, just don't take us for mugs by saying he was very good. plenty of other things he could say or better still say nothing at all

Ernest, I agree about moon, he is our most gifted creative talent looking forward. We may all need some endurance until it happens.

As for Lilley, I wonder if he has been sent to Bradford so Toovey can have a look and decide if he thinks he could play scrum half under him for Leeds next season.

By creative do you mean running? He hasn't got any kind of creative passing game at all.

The solution whether from inside or outside the club is an actual halfback.

What worries me about Sutcliffe is he seems to be going backwards. When he made his debut no matter what position he played he made a positive contribution to the team. I remember being furious after the semi final against Wigan in 2013 because I was certain that if McDermott played Sutcliffe from the beginning instead of McGuire or JJB (Who were on one leg between them) we would have won. He had a fairly quiet 2014 but that could easily be put down to second season syndrome and playing in a Leeds team that were uninspiring in attack before playing out of his skin at points in 2015 before suffering that season ending injury.

Since then he has looked worse than when he started. Last season was understandable as apparently he was rushed back from his injury and was expected to be the main director when that is not his natural strength and he is still learning the trade but he seems to be continuing this in 2017. I really do hope that he can shake off whatever is holding him back (Could a new coach be what he needs?) as RL is crying out for more quality British halves and he has massive potential but he is going to have to turn it around soon before the fans turn on him.

As for the game itself Leeds picked up where they left off in 2016. Defensively solid but lacking any serious idea in attack and relying on bits of magic to score.

More schoolyard name calling.

This is very true though in fairness the team wasn't struggling in the same way as it was last year. And he's hardly alone in making relatively few recent positive contributions; there are players with far more experience who also give the appearance of having gone backwards. Probably a confidence thing.

That's very true and with the current lack of structure in the side it is a difficult place to regain confidence for anyone. I do hope he can claw back some form because he has massive potential and I would hate to see it wasted.

But for Ward's pass straying forward and Makinson's outstanding cover defence, Sutcliffe would have had two great tries. In an incredibly tight game, against very very disciplined defence, Im not sure what people expect from him.

It is a game of fine margins. There was also a good read from Fages to intercept a pass from Sutty that looked like it'd give Ward a walk in.

The problem with his performance is that all that adds up to a bad one, he didn't manage the game, and was caught several times on the last in good ball. The same can however, can be said of Burrow. As a whole the halfback combo didn't work, and its unfair to lay all that on sutty.

He can run and kick well near the line. Agree he is not John Holmes with ball in hand but Can draw and pass well and out of the tackle. I'm making an assumption that oodles of cash for a new signing won't be forthcoming and internal options are limited.

Does it? Im not sure it does. Outside Fages tackle count i thought Sutcliffe was the best half on the pitch. As i said, Saints were incredibly disciplined defensively and the game was very very tight. Same game, another day, we win. Most games, we play like that, we win. If leigh defend like they did against Cas and we play how we did, we win comfortably.

I disagree. neither leeds half back created a thing and the attacking kicks, mainly which were by burrow, were dreadful

Both Leeds half backs were abysmal. They didn't have an ounce of creativity within them.

I certainly agree that performances like that against less defensively disciplined opposition will probably lead to more wins than losses and Saints deserve some credit for that, but in general we offered very little in the final twenty, there was the little drop off play to a half, trying to barge over one or two out from the ruck, and in general little imagination. That, (apart from coaching) falls to the halves. Like I said Sutty also got caught ball in hand a fair few times on the 5th when we should have been looking to kick and turn the screw.

It was poor, and maybe the inability to finish the set properly cost us the game, but the responsibility for that doesn't/shouldn't lie solely with Sutty.

i think there is a strong argument that we decided to run it on the last as a tactic to limit the amount of 7tackle sets given away. I would however agree that our last tackle options arent our strongest part of the game and werent last week.

I also dont think we werent creative, i think we were far more creative than Saints, we had Watkins getting through a couple of times, Sutty backing up, the disallowed try, the play that went from the middle to the right wing, all the way back across the left, all the way back across to the right and must have been about 20 passes and included a lovely flat pass from Sutcliffe to Watkins, then a massive booming pass again from Sutcliffe, Parcell got a few half-breaks,

Its interesting that in a game where we only scored one try and our last tackle options sucked, that the senior halfback on the field hasn't received anywhere near as much stick as Sutcliffe. Surely if Sutcliffe was struggling it should be up to Burrow to step up and take over?

I'm not defending Sutcliffe BTW. He was poor.

The whole spine lacks creativity, Parcell seems to be mainly a runner and Golding was good in defence but anonymous in attack, we probably would have scored more had Suttcliffe played there as he offers an extra pivot in attack.

but would probably have conceded 3 more due to his defence

Parcell looked as creative as you can be from dummy half. Our problem, yet again, we're completely reliant on McGuire being fit, and in form.

We also need a full back who can act as a pivot, so I agree re Sutcliffe

so drop last weeks man of the match and play an uncreative player in Sutcliffe who's, who looks out of form and who has never looked anything but average at full back?

Like many I expected Sutty to spend the pre season improving his positioning and goal line defence and be our first choice full back.
I wasn't surprised when Golding turned out at #1 and always thought he looks abit shaky, but after his performance at Saints he has earned the FB position. It's his to lose now, Though with this coach who knows.

As for early comments about Sutty getting more grief than the more senior Burrow I think that's because people don't see him as a HB anymore. He's been a back up hooker (sadly) for so long.

He can still find a gap and occasionally gets through one but the speed to really exploit his size and agility just isn't there anymore.
We have four half backs on the team sheet. Two are basically runners with average passing game, ones a patched up runner with a short kicking game of sorts and the last is a very slow organizing HB shipped out to Bradford.

ATM I think our best pairing is Mags and Lilley but the coach seems to have no faith in Lilley and a need to get Burrow in every game.

Interesting reading all this commentary back now we've neared the end of the season. To think after what was a dreary affair we're now second. Castleford are running away with it, but just interesting to see how much people's opinions have changed since the first round!

On this we agree Tad!