At last, a sensible comment during the whole of this tedious, repetitive debate.

Clearly is relevant otherwise why weren't they in the top 4 last year? Because they conceded more than they scored on too many occasions.



Good for them, did they get awarded the Super League title for finishing ahead of us?



And Warrington and three others finished ahead of them so clearly their defence cost them even if you think it's irrelevant.



And if they introduce bonus points to the league table for 'Entertainment value' then that might be relevant. They won't win games and titles because you find them more entertaining than others.

Imo, you will never win anything in any sport if you are not able to defend and are quite happy to rely on simply scoring a boatload of points. This rings especially true in playoff based sports as defence seems to ramp up towards the back end.

It comes down to how you look at the game, while I, like everyone, love watching good attacking team, I also can't ignore defence. Often times I would say a good defensive play is more exciting or crowd lifting than an offensive one. After all it is half of the game.

One thing is absolutely certain, you cannot win a game at all if you can't score.

If you can't attack then sure as $h1t you're going to have to do a lot more defending. Defence and attack are totally intertwined, stats on the two tell a poor story and are of limited value. What we saw last season was a team that was clueless with the ball, scrambled well but at times - usually critical ones - capitulated defensively.
Simple arguments are made by simple people.

Also, we forget sport is about entertainment. When we won the treble in 2015 we did it in some style. Cuthbertson was a revelation and the team played some terrific rugby for the majority of the season. Brilliant attacking play saw us steal the game from Hudds to win the LLS, and the GF was a fantastic game of rugby to watch. And not just because it was for a trophy.

I really enjoyed Cas's attacking play and some of the wins they managed last year.
BUT if it had been Leeds I reckon I'd have been entertained and frustrated in equal measure.
Way superior to us last year yet way inferior to our 2015 vintage.

I'd take that over bored and disappointed. But I understand your point and agree.

I know you can't win if you don't score, but I agree with Clearwing, that if Cas had been Leeds I'd have been entertained and frustrated in equal measure. I can just as easily flip your comment that conceding more points puts more pressure on your attack. Our defence last season was sloppy and permanently on the back foot for a variety of reasons including our poor attack.

If I wanted a team to compete, I would 100% prefer my defence to be the solid Base on which to build. That's with my coach hat on, obviously I take your point on entertainment.

I actually think the single biggest thing Leeds could do to improve both attack and defence is improve on our last tackles plays. I lost count of the amount of times last season where we chose to bypass kickers and try and go Harlem Globe Trotters, even in our own half.

Wigan scored the second fewest points in the regular season just in front of us by 36 which works out at less than a goalkick per game, yet were 2 points off top. But they had the 2nd best defence so pretty much the opposite of Cas (2nd best attack, 2nd worst defence).

Wigan might not be as entertaining as Cas but an 18-16 scrappy win will do more for your league position than a 36-34 loss no matter how entertaining those tries were in defeat.

But did they win a game when not scoring?

its immaterial. you need both to win anything. a good defence and effective attack

Think this thread may need renaming

The Carpet Carriers - how will our Roman settlement dwelling cousins fare in 2017?

Answer - better than us IF they can improve D. Last year some super football but could not stop a pig in a passage when playing good teams.

Incorrect. They need to improve nothing to fair better than us. They would have to regress significantly to match us.

But as quite fairly put earlier in thread, it was about Cas and not us. Nobody disagrees on the point of improving defence to win a trophy, but with an attack so good, winning matches is not a problem, and hence why the prediction is to be up there. I always maintain 2005 when Leeds were truelly at their greatest, the best team by miles. We lost both major finals, but the rugby was superb. Trophy's are not the be all and end all. Performances like Leeds last year however turns many away.

I also agreed with Clearwing, see the post. What argument do you want to flip? I stated a simple fact, you have to score to win a game - is this not correct? I also said that attack and defence are all one, I used the word intertwined. Do you disagree? You can't defend for 80 if you don't exert any pressure when you have the ball. Likewise you can't win trophies with a shoot out every week. And yes, you are spot on regarding last tackle plays.

Last year a lot of teams worked out Wigan's attacking structure. They misfired a lot. They are unimaginative when their structures are shut down and go to a muscle game. They also had some outstanding individuals who turned up when needed. It was enough last season against frankly disappointing opposition to squeeze out a turd of a winning season.

That usually produces entertaining rugby as well.

2016 was the worse year quality wise since the inception of Super League, and I'm not saying that because we were schnitzel either. The game as a whole is very stale at the moment.

I was suggesting that while you said you'll have a lot of pressure on your defence if you can't attack, similarly there will be a lot of pressure on on your attack if you are conceding a shedload. Probably leading to more pushing passes and dropped ball etc.

Now I've read read your post, we appear to be saying the same thing, apologies. I was trying to argue the suggestion that fixing our attack would mean we'll be fine this season. It'll help, but some of our basic defence was terrible. Unable to slide, unable to control a ruck. I believe traditionally defence is easier to fix than attack also.

They had a lot of injuries that disrupted their play - a really good attack is very difficult to defend against - as Gotcha mentioned Leeds in 2005 and the first year under McClennan played some stunning attacking rugby and without a great defence won the majority of their games.

If you have a good attack you will have a good proportion of the ball that makes life much easier.

As I said in the Burrow thread, Last year our defence regressed a bit, our attack regressed massively. We conceded 99 points more than 2015 but scored 354 fewer and that includes a terrible 5 game spell where we conceded 38, 28, 52, 40, 52.

A good defence keeps you in games, your attack can be appalling for 70mins but if your defence has kept you in it, you attack can fire for 10 minutes and win you a game. A good attack makes a good defence much easier.

Our big problem last year was that we didnt really have the game management to help our defence (good long kicking, repeat sets) or the knowledge to build attacks (our last tackle options were terrible) which often left us chasing games and having to try the long range or spectacular which increase the chance of dropped ball, which gave us poorer field position and made defending harder. Whatever his physical issues about his speed and size, i liked the way Lilley learned adapted to this as the season went on.

No worries.

Wigan had a solid game to fall back on, much like us in years past when we had injuries. We lost too many leaders on and off the pitch to keep us ticking over. The team effectively fell apart as a unit.
Tough times, more to come.

The more structured your style the more you can adapt to injuries. Whenever you lose key players performance will drop, but less so if everyone at least tries to play the same way when in the same position.

Last season it really felt at times as though BM and whatever senior players had no idea what was going wrong or how to fix it. Like it or not, that sort of team implosion is the responsibility of the coach first and foremost.

You can say that again..Do us a favour and stick your marketing manager on hold.He's taking all the feeds up with what the Rhinos are going to do in 2017.Cant get a word in edge ways..



Cheers..

spot on. it lumbered from one week to the next with no improvement and no lessons learnt