Thought we looked fine down the middle for the opening 25 mins, we made yards comfortably.

Our problem, and it was similar to the Widnes game, is when the game becomes niggly, disjointed and an arm wrestle the team as a whole seem to get frustrated. We need to learn to either
A, stop the game descending into that
B, not let it rattle us and knock us off our stride of what we want to do.

Some good parts. The backs were given more ball and the workload seemed well shared. Whilst Burrow is a legend at this club, the positive effect on the balance and workload of the side in his absence is quite considerable.

Would go between Aiton and Hall for MOM. However Aiton being one of those who got rattled in those last 10 mins of the first half and that embarrassing dive for the hand to the face means I'll go for Hall. Ablett after an average start in the first two games looked a lot better tonight.

Also, with Lunt's contract up at the end of the season, good to see him playing for a deal with Leeds with that last play

Ward, Hall, Ablett, JJB, Cuthbertson, Aiton, Briscoe, McGuire and Moon were our best players IMO in a scrappy sort of a game. The ruck was terrible and several Huddersfield players were allowed to move yards off the mark and both sides were messing about. I thought Leeds scored some excellent tries and Huddersfield scored some soft tries so the result was fair.

Three out of three is not bad and we can expect plenty of improvement still to come.

Just been on Totalrlfansforum I know there are some genuine Leeds dislikers and now they're accusing Leeds of Soccer style diving and Bentham gave Leeds everything

Good means we're worrying opposition fans again. Been a few years!

To be fair Aiton's theatrics were embarrassing (although stupid of the Hudds players to give him that chance to go down).

As for Bentham, I think we did get the better of some 50/50 calls, as usually happens as the home side but nothing majorly bad from him, perhaps he blew for a few soft ones for both sides.

I too thought that it was a bit rich for McDermott to go on about messing at the play the ball when it seemed to me we were just as guilty.
I thought Ablett was good, Hall caught every high ball aimed at him, as did Hardaker apart from one but his ball retention in the tackle was poor on a number of occasions which cost us.
Peacock does look as if the years are finally catching up with him & Leuluai isn't earning another year yet for me.
Sinfield's kick offs were a major disappointment , maybe time to hand that role over to Hardaker.
All in all good to see a proper game & The Glenlivet went down well on a cold night.
Can't wait for the Wigan game.

Its possible that Peacock's decline could be more rapid than people expect. He said that preseason convinced him that this should be his last season, and he really is at the age when the decline in athleticism is (usually) pretty steep. As is Leuluai. We've just got to hope that he's just taking time to warm up.

I dunno BR, a couple of daft penalties and offloads aside I thought Peacock was pretty good.

In fact that could go for the whole team performance too.


On Aiton, his theatrics (2nd one, 1st one I thought was genuine) are a bit embarrassing but unfortunately it happens regularly. Whether it's players diving at the play the ball or holding a defenders arm in etc it's all cheating. I don't blame the players, in the same way as I don't blame Rooney for his recent dive. He was fouled, but without falling over Rooney wouldn't have got the penalty. The same goes for Aiton.
That aside I thought he was superb and I think our game suffered when he was off the pitch. More of the same please Mr Aiton.

To be fair are we judging Peacock by normal prop standards, or by his usual freakish standards.

For a normal prop, tonight he was ok/average. Going by Peacock's past far from normal prop performances he was poor.....there in lays the difference.

I haven't heard Mcdermott's post match, but if he's blaming the officials for our mistakes it's a bit poor. The penalties we gave away on the 4th tackle were penalties also the ref isn't at fault when we knock. Both teams did just as much messing at the play the ball. I'm happy to excuse Aiton's dive, as McGilvary does one every game with less contact. Also it made up for the shot Wardle put on Sinfield.

I'd of liked to see Achurch go in to second row instead of loose forward. I think he'd of really opened them up down one of the wings. Also when we get to the dry season i'm really hoping Sinny can connect with Cuthbertson's offloads better. I'll let him off with the ball been greasy tonight.



The thing i'm most positive about is we dug deep and ground out a victory when we needed to. This was something we couldn't seem to do last year. Admittedly we shouldn't of been in that position, but still it's a good confidence boost for the team.

To be fair to McDermott I don't think he was blaming our errors on the reffing but was more a moan about holding down/interference at the play the ball in general. I also think he was probably getting his point in to the refs after Anderson apparently did at half time.

I thought Peacock was ok tonight.like others have said, Not his usual freakish effort but still one of the better props on show.Early days but Cuthbertson looks like he is a great addition and is ready to take some of the burden from JP,very good signs so far.

We look like we have plenty of points in us and if we can tighten the defence up, and in the main its just lack of concentration really, im confident we will go well this year.

Thought for the first 25 minutes we were good in attack and defence. After that we went down hill a bit. Didn't think peacock was too bad at all. Ward had a good game, both wingers looked good. Hardaker was poor holding onto the ball in. After first period our defence looked poor and needs a bit of attention.
It was good to see for the cuthbertson try the body's we had running in motion not something we saw too much of last year. Also for halls try was good to see moon straighten his run up to give hall the space again last year I feel he ran diagonally too much

I couldn't go so had the displeasure of watching it on Sky. Clarke's hatred of us seems to be growing. It reminded me of when we played Salford and he was cheering for them.

In terms of the game...Hardaker had a mare and Briscoe is continuing his excellent from. Sir Kev was anonymous and it was left to Mags to try and create something. JP looked fooked so thank god for Cuthbertson. Our back row was fantastic and it's good to see Stevie Ward improving.

Finally, McDermott's comments at the end seemed unjustified to me. It was a good fast game

Agree regarding back row. Ablett had his best game so far ward had a good game in back row, and Achurch looking strong. Also thought JJB had a solid game.

Regarding mcdermotts comments not sure what he saw them doing that we or infact most RL teams do. When Shudds had the ball they did move off the mark on most occasions though

well for me i thought it was scrappy at the PtB last night. woiuld be nice if the refs kept teams on the mark, didnt see hudds do that much last night always a step or 5 forward, winning cheap penalties for the markers "interfering" not sure if thats what McD meant.

as for the game, we were brillian for the first 30 mins of the first half, frst and last 5 in the 2nd. lets forget about that middle 30 in the 2nd... =/ i really thought hudds would score every time they got in to our half.
where is that defence from the first 12 games of last year?

we do look good in attack. briscoe had a good game, good to see him settled. cuthbert is looking really really good, fantastic signing.

hopefully our next game wont be so close.

The Brough dummy spit after Aiton's try was epic even by his standards!

McDermotts comments were surely more to do with the inconsistency of Bentham, and they were justified. He penalised Huddersfield in the first half for the infringements, and probably why some are saying Leeds got the calls. Then at half time the Huddersfield team, unjustified, got into him, and in the second half he seemed to not dare give a penalty against them. They were still committing the offences, but were not punished. McDermott was spot on.

anyone think there will be any action against aiton and/or connor? aiton for his "theatrics" and connor for what looked like a possible gauge.

Don't see what action could be taken against Aiton yes it was embarrassing and for me he made a meal of it but there was a definate push in the face he hasn't dived without being touched. All he has to say is caught his eye and went down in a panic

Suppose Aiton will be too early to be a real contender for next years Oscars however the prestigious "Fallon De Floor" award could be in his favour come the end of the year

Thought we looked decent to start with, though Hudds were gash at the beginning.

Hudds then changed their tactics and began playing simply for a quick play the ball - when Crabtree and Kopzjak came on, they weren't particularly trying to punch holes in the line, they were hitting contact and immediately hitting the deck to find their elbows and knees. Hudds were getting a roll on, and we couldn't handle it and got frustrated. And something that had been typical of Leeds over the past couple of years is when we become frustrated, we become ill disciplines in all aspects of the game - silly slack offloads, needless penalties and poor defensive decisions.

Luckily, they dug in and found a way to win - something in the past few years we wouldn't have done during a regular season game.

Good job we dropped 2 teams & brought back P&R otherwise it could have been a mediocre game.

A good win despite not playing very well. If - as has been suggested - we have spent most of the off season working on our attacking patterns it isn't showing. The usual issues are showing again, lack of a quality kicking game, no attacking structure and no speed. The second half was positively pedestrian - we play to close to line for a structured play. Look at South Sydney and how deep they were on structured plays. If all we have is speculative offloads then that explains the need to play close to line?

JJB deserves much praise he was as good as anyone on the field, his energy is commendable. Ward was very good as was Briscoe. Hardaker looked to me like a player with other things on his mind. The older players are starting to look old and ineffective - Delanney will freshen things up let's hope it isn't Singleton who gets the chop.

Got me thinking last night, could this be the last lap (this season)or so of Sinfield?

Looked not great so far this season