So who conceded that penalty, in your opinion?

The A.N.Other with McShane at marker was Brad Singleton - McShane as the lead defender signaled right and went right, Singleton as secondary signaled left and went right. Jones-Buchanan was the A defender on Leeds' left at that play the ball and shot out of the line having nominated a likely receiver. I've no doubt he's coached to do this (does it every week and always gets selected) and I've also no doubt it's asking for trouble to get ahead of the defensive line - especially when defending close to your try-line where any chink is difficult to cover in time.

The combination of the two actions opened the gap in Leeds central defence close to their line and not for the first time - indeed it's been happening all season.

I cannot believe you think singleton and mcshane were at fault for the try ,what have you been sniffing ?
When JJB is not darting out of the line he is giving penalties away. He is worse than bailey at the moment and will probably lose us 10 points this season

So both markers going the same way is ok in your book is it? By having no marker the door was opened. Without the open door their half back would have most likley have passed. JJB running out didn't help and shares blame but you have to rely on your inside man who in this case wasn't there.

Not Vickery!

T

I agree. But defenders have to rely on and trust their inside man, hence I usually put most blame on the inside man when gaps like this appear. Last week against Wigan the rushed defence was highly effective with JJB leading the line.

Agreed but if not Vickery then who?

If JJB does not dart out of the line he try does not get scored simple. Tbh I am more concerned about the stupid penalties he keeps giving away sucking the energy out of the players and gifting the opposition momentum.

We both know whom!......but to follow that hare would be to go off at a tangent. This thread is for those fixated by our reserve right winger and who seek to pick on him as the reason for our current troubles. That there are senior players who are currently out of form and are making greater errors is overlooked.

JJB was marking the next man. Their acting half back should have been tackled by one of our markers. I accept JJB moved up quickly on his man but had he stayed in line it is doublful he would have stopped thetry being scored on his inside.

that's your opinion and your entitled to it who do you blame for the silly penalties he gives away ? Let me guess somebody else !!!

JJB does give away some silly penalties and Friday was one of his worst in that respect. But he still remains at the centre of our engine room.

Who do you blame for Hall dashing out of the line for the first try?

Hall . He doesn't give away silly penalties though . Think we ought to look at the coach for the current state of our team though something is broken at leeds at the moment and it needs fixing quick I certainly wouldn't get on singletons back for signalling one way then going the other nor will I give credit to McDermott for rotating squad and blooding youngsters when his hand has been forced by injuries

Who is the hare in this scenario - I think we're already discussing the tortoise.

Which error in your opinion was greater than Vickery's attempt to return the deep Hull kick in the 37th minute?

Jon Wells pin-pointed this individual play as the point at which the game was decided. It wasn't the only occasion Vickery was driven back while in possession last night either.

Is it not reasonable in your view for Leeds fans to assess the contribution of a player who was added to the squad and described by the CEO at that time as (along with Moon and Achurch) =#4000FF'terrific talents who add extra strike and quality to our team.'

Vickery has now played ten times for Leeds. Thus far he's failed to show any talent let alone it be terrific, hasn't added any strike if anything he's only reduced it and last night was typical of the quality he's brought. How long do we have to wait for the player to resemble his billing?

Whilst everyone rightly says Vickery is not SL standard its not his fault he gets picked.
What do you expect him to say when the coach says you are playing ?
"Brian, please don't pick me I am rubbish"
There is only one person to blame for his performances and thats the coach, who should not pick him in the first place, as its his inadequacies as a coach that he cannot see what everybody else can.

This actually made me lol.

Vickery has been an adequate make-weight winger to date but he did have a terrible game last night.

That said, it is unjust for the performance of a temporary player brought in for squad cover to mask the inadequacies of the rest of the squad. IIRC all three Hull tries were scored on the left edge (Sky showed a nice graphic to show this). Hall and Moon and the other 'stars' not injured need to live up to their salaries. Clarkson's miss for the Houghton try was pretty poor, for example. At least Delaney manages to do effective yards and defence without giving unnecessary penalties away like JJB - his first came after 8 minutes, surely not just a factor of fatigue after putting in the hard work?

Hall has given consistent top class displays for several years now and his current dip in form is unusual. But one of his errors led to their first try which the anti-Vickery Club choose to gloss over.

I am not on his back or on Singleton's or anyone else's back for that matter. I am against the negative blame game so in order to balance the comments regarding Vickery I am just pointing out the errors of others, to those of you who choose to wear Stevie Wonder's while looking at certain players and clear microscopes for others.

Leeds have come through a tough set of fixtures and until the last few games have done well with some of the best defence seen from a Leeds side which has seen us beating most of the sides above us. We have now hit a drop in form with key players under par combined with a growing injury list. However all is not lost as we have a much easier 2nd half of the season to come.

Our key playes have class and will regain form. (in fact there were signs in the last 10 minutes of Sinfield stirring back to attacking form) The whole side has guts a never say die atttitude and mental toughness that was shown against Wigan and again in the 2nd half against Hull when we could have been blown away.

I think the coach has handled the youngsters just fine. Because they are now ready does not mean they were ready for the first team any earlier and all this lack of rotation talk is based on pure assumption. What is clear is that the loss of JP is a big blow as none of the benchmen have come close to filling his boots. I note the rotationists would have had us playing without JP for even longer this season and many of these same experts would have dropped him and pensioned him off last year.

You choose to see doom and gloom because we have lost the last 4 games. But apart from the Huddersfield game we could or should have won against St Helens and Wigan and came up against an inform Hull who had a purple patch in the first half that would have seen off most sides.

The loss of Watkins on top of JP, Ward & Ablett is really tough IMO McGuire less so. However if the reserves now stand up to the plate with an easier set of fixtures we still have a good chance of a top 4 spot for the playoffs when some of our injured stars may return.

:3mto26e1




:3mto26e1

Hall's missed tackle that led to their first try, Hardaker giving up the chase for the 2nd try (when Vickery came from further and made the tackle on the line) the combined mistake by McShane/Singleton/JJB for the 3rd try were worse defensively and McShane giving the ball away on the first tackle on their line while we were on a repeat set spring to mind.

:3mto26e1

I like Jon Wells but beg to differ on this point. I agree it was a bad error from Vickery which put us under pressure but no more pressure that when Hall lost possession and was driven back over his line also for a drop out. The only difference between these two incidents is that a penalty and then a marker error by other players (that let in their soft 3rd try) followed the Vickery blunder but equally could have followed the Hall mistake.

I note that you were not so critical of Bailey when he actually gave possession away (worse than a drop out) close to our line the other day which led to a try on the next set. Now this was much more of a game changing blunder.

'"

How many 1st grade appearance does he have to make before the status of "reserve" is no longer used to defend his performances?

He is being selected in the 1st team ahead of genuine reserve grade players who have been coached through our Academy systems over several years. He has to do something, at some point, surely to justify that selection?

I haven't seen the last two weeks but I don't think I need to. It was fairly obvious fairly early how lightweight, slow and error strewn he is. Well, fairly obvious to most apart from the one important person.

Double post.

The CEO appears to have let the squad strength decline for too long..........we've had a great run though some would say have had fortune on our side maybe the last couple of years.

All in all Vickery is simply not good enough at Super League level and should not be near a first team shirt! The recruitment has been very poor and the squad is getting older.

We need to start to slowly intergrate new/younger players through the squad instead of mass wholesale changes in a short period.

What did Hall do wrong in that situation?

Hull had easily worked a four on one overlap once Heremaia was positioned on the outside of Moon, leaving only the Leeds starting hooker facing the Hull scrum half, full-back, centre and winger, with the Leeds winger having to scramble back up to the defensive line as he had started the play in the correct position anticipating the early (4th tackle) kick. Hall's presence actually forced McDonnell inside which should have been meat and drink to Leeds' inside cover but Moon had initially been caught almost static (ball watching) as the inside defenders were drifting he only drifted late, he then oversped and was easily beaten back on the inside as McDonnell cut running behind two other Hull players in the process - if only there had been a video ref available it might have been interesting.

So what could Hall do any different to what he did?



Agreed on Hardaker pretty poor commitment on the chase for some reason, did something similar V Huddersfield where that time he dived too early when he would have had Cudjoe for pace had he stayed on his feet. Vickery made great ground on Crooks but didn't appear to quite know what to do when he got there so IMO backed off half a yard around ten metres out and did nothing until it was too late. That's not to imply he was in any way to blame for that score after Jones-Buchanan had been slow to react to the Lineham breakaway. Jones-Buchanan isn't challenging for the ball so he has to be alert to back-up a Leeds possession of defend a Hull one.



What did McShane do wrong for the Houghton try? Worse defensively than what?

McShane lost possession but he at least was trying to promote the ball having tied in Westerman, O'Donnell and Pitts in an attacking situation - good work by Ben Galea preventing the pass. The possession was then turned over 90 metres from the Leeds tryline - so if you're going to turn the ball over at least that was a comparatively safe area to do so.

The Vickery play - in the first instance he should have taken the ball on the full. Even then he could have easily reached the ten metre line or therebouts before surrendering in a tackle. You need to secure possession at that end of the field moreso than at the opposite end IMO - easier to defend a set in the opposition half than ending one in your own quarter. I think the reason he didn't choose to hit the ball straight back-up was eleven minutes earlier he had fielded another kick and returned it to around seven metres out but because he didn't get low and find the ground he was driven back and in truth it was perhaps a fortuitous decision from Child that allowed him to get up and play the ball just in front of the line. The lateral run was simply the most inept play I've seen attempted since Martin Offiah did something similar in an 'A' team game at Headingley just after he switched codes. Offiah could run but boy was he clueless to begin with in his League career. By the end of Vickery's dash he was actually heading back towards his own line making the Hull defenders job even easier.



How did Bailey give possession away?

Not so critical - are we assessing criticism by degrees now? Perhaps Bailey has built up some credit along the way. I can't recall which thread that was, how I left it or if you responded - which would have been the place to do so perhaps rather than here - but didn't I say Bailey and Jones-Buchanan should concentrate on rugby rather than amateur dramatics? A fairly critical observation?



I can give you examples of ten games where he's done precious little positive of note either offensively or defensively. Filling a shirt while offering little to justify his selection or his place in Leeds' 1st grade squad of 25 or the CEO's claim that he is one of a new triumvirate of 'terrific talents who add extra strike and quality to our team.' Yet to be entirely convinced by the other two but at least they've shown glimpses of there being something potentially to work with. Interestingly Moon started brightly but is now starting to show the effects of being in the Leeds set-up and far from providing quality service to his quality winger - Hall has only troubled the scorers once in his last eight games.



I had seen nothing and knew nothing of Achurch and Vickery before seeing them turn out for Leeds, I assumed the CEO perhaps was better informed and was speaking with some knowledge when he described them as 'terrific talents' - thus far they've hidden them well. Perhaps he was misquoted?

The CEO has provided his coach with a barely adequate squad for 2013 (while claiming it to be his best ever) - quality rich but numerically poor - vulnerable to a spate of injuries which sadly given the ever increasing ages of the old guard was quite likely to occur. A depleted squad without a recognised hooker, at least not one that has the full confidence of the coach which is resulting in muddle in the middle, a lack of consistent defence around the ruck area and players forced into making hero defensive plays. When Leeds attack in the opposing twenty you don't expect a score but when Leeds defend in their own red zone it feels almost inevitable.

Not sure where to apportion the blame for Leeds worst run of results since Tony Smith's dark season. The CEO hasn't supplied the manpower but at the same time the coach isn't utilising what he's got, IMO.

The CEO hasn't supplied the manpower but at the same time the coach isn't utilising what he's got, IMO.'"

Brilliant post tvoc
Couldn't have put it better myself .not joking I really couldn't ha
I wonder how McDermotts time at leeds will be remembered with the passage of time ?
Innovater / legend / tactical genius /
None of the above

Can't believe anybody can still defend the selection of Vickery.......if the coach still does so then seriously he should be sacked despite my suggestion made elsewhere.

If nothing else it makes a complete mockery of having an academy team.