I assume it was Ian Kirke. If so, why would anybody show any surprise at such a statistic?

However, let me defend him here. We spilled so much possession that he may have an excuse for a low hit up rate. I'll defend him further by questioning the validity of that stat because I saw him make one carry, albeit he did knock the ball on so perhaps that doesn't constitute a "carry".

No, I can't go on defending him. Even with all that it wouldn't surprise me to see him hide from the ball.

And you cannot criticise McDermott solely. Kirke must have had photos of Mclennan and Smith before him. I remain baffled at his continual selection given his lack of bottle but I tired of beating that drum some time ago and am now resigned to watching his "contribution each" week as his fellow professionals carry him to glory.

I have no desire to knit fog today.

People have read your opinions on this squad of players. They can make their own minds up.

They could yes. Not sure some are capable though with the "their own" bit

I can only remember Brough making one actual break and eluding players and thats when Vickery finaly dropped back to protect the sideline and Brough ran it. Apart from that our line speed was good and the tries they scored through the hands came from good vision and an offload here and there.

As for me saying I thought we matched them elsewhere apart from the score, the stats this morning back me up

Metres:
Lee - 1058
Hudd - 932

Carries:
Lee - 184
Hudd - 186

MPC:
Lee - 5.75
Hudd - 5.01

Offloads:
Lee - 7
Hudd - 10

Tackles:
Lee - 308
Hudd - 271

Missed:
Lee - 27
Hudd - 20

Tackle %:
Lee - 92
Hudd - 93

Penalties:
Leeds - 7
Hudd - 8

Breaks:
Lee - 5
Hudd - 6

Errors:
Lee - 21
Hudd - 12

Like I said before the stats even came out, I didnt see a whole lot of difference across the pitch between the teams apart from errors and their kicking game that set up 4 out of the 6 they scored.

And yes, it was at HT I posted about Brown. How sky gave him the MOM is beyond me after the 2nd half performance.

Oh the Irony.

Those do not back you up Harrigan. Not sure how you have come to that conclusion. There is massive differences in each of those.

FWIW I agree completely. I though our defence was excellent first half. We really fired into them, especially Crabtree.

I hoped that our completion rate would impove 2nd half but it didn't and the tries were bound to come late on given the turnovers.

The kicking game was excellent but we didn't have our full back. Kallum is a talent no doubt but his positioning was poor, as one might expect from someone so inexperienced at the position.

2 of the stats you quoted we were better



1 was the missed tackles and I have since added tackle efficiency which there is a difference of 1%. The other is the error count, which I said originally was the reason we lost. My point originally was that with ball in hand, and defensively, ie line speed/tackling, there wasnt much difference at all and there wasnt. They scored 3 tries off of errors from kicks and 1 from a great kick to the corner where Vickery decided to run in 20 metres. The other 2 tries were well worked.

The difference is I share a negative opinion of Kirke that is reinforced by his performances.

You give a negative opinion of, say, Burrow, who proves you wrong by winning a Harry Sunderland award or JJB who proves you wrong by winning player of the year, for example.

In other words, I know what I am talking about and you don't. It's fairly self evident.

Your correct, my mistake.

This is that stat that beat us.

As the age-old saying goes "you can't score without the ball".

did anyone really think there wouldn't be a blip soon after 2 tough games? if it wasn't friday it would have been next week

We had enough ball near their line to at least score 1, their defense was very solid and our attack was too disjointed even when we did manage to hold on to the ball for 6 tackles.

I think you can have a blip without been as dire as we were tbh mate it was on par with anything we've seen bad in the last decade imo.

vickery is no better than the youngsters coming through the system.
why on earth hetherington would bring him in before the likes of chisolm and keinhorst baffles me.......an aussie who cant get a gig back home turns up here and gets a contract when he is ordinary baffles me......well done gary for doing your part to develop the game and youngsters here......

Being.

And Ian Kirke proves you wrong by winning grand final winners ring's. To compare the worse of Kirkes performances to Rob Burrows best performance is way too bias and proves you don't have a clue what your talking about.

It's fairly self evident

Get Damo...!

I watched the 'highlights' and said on another thread that blaming Vickery for so many of the Hudds tries is ludicrous. He made a bad miss for the first, but several of those kicks could and should have been dealt with by the fullback, not the winger - who would have struggled to make any difference had he been Offiah-esque, especially on a slippery surface.

Watkins was nowhere near in the right position, especially given the number of kicks that led to tries. Vickery had to stay in the line for several of them as he was marking his opposite number.

Defending kicks is a team game. Leeds failed miserably against a very good kicker.

Highlights from Hunslet, report read well for all the Rhinos'....rumour has it that Brian MaC was at the game as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGAxZefQzXw

Highlights from Hunslet, report read well for all the Rhinos'....rumour has it that Brian MaC was at the game as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGAxZefQzXw

Isn't there a brick somehwere you can hit yourself with?

Unfortunately not but I was hanging out with a Garden Gnome at the weekend that I wanted to chuck in the River Aire from my mates apartment. However I don't have £25 spare for a new one. Do you have £25? I could hit myself with this





But seriously (that's if you can take me seriously after this pic) your latest point against Kirke doesn't hold water because Rob Burrow (I'll let the experts Gotcha and Harrigan pick his past performances apart if they want to) and probably JJB have dire performances throughout their careers that are just as dire as Kirkes. However on reflection all three of them have more than made up for these off days by producing performances that have helped Leeds Rhinos become the champion team that they are today.

Your fixation on Ian Kirke is noted and therefore any opinion you have of his performances is most likely to be babble.

My criticism of Burrow wasn't that he was a poor player. He always gave 100% and before the defences in the UK game tightened up, was very good in broken play. It was that he wasnt a very accurate passer of the ball and couldn't organise, which are the key components of being a good 7. I like his role out of dummy half though. It's the only place where he still gets to see broken play on a regular basis and he rarely has to pass more than 5 yards. It's win/win.

I think the gnome may have more intrinsic value and the universe might be better if you didn't chuck it in the river but threw yourself in, instead.


Has anyone ever taken you seriously, pre or post pic?

I'll give you this, you've managed to engage me in more dialogue with you than I've ever deemed appropriate in the past however many years you've been positing drivel so well done sir. I'll revert to type from this point on however.