Paul Cullen made a valid point about much pressure was put on the Warrington markers by the fact that Burrow was at acting half. There are times players can get away with a little bit of coasting at acting half, but not against particular players. Burrow's kicking game means not even on the last. I wouldn't be suprised if the scoot threat is also helping draw a few more interference penalties.

The game nowadays is almost "put your best runner at acting half"
Distribution from there doesn't need to be magical, that's needed from the halves and fullback, whilst the hooker just needs to have a long pass to a pivot or a short pass to a runner.
I suspect we'll see more teams also following our defensive structure, and not including the hooker in the middle four unit.

Seeing as you asked. Burrow had his lowest number of carries, metres and D/runs in the SL against Widnes!


(edit: NB: SL this year in case the hair splitter is lurking

)

Burrow was 2nd highest metre maker against Manly with 96m and highest number of carries with 16 of those 11 D/runs. Whereas McShane made 11m in 2 carries which were also D/runs.

A little unfair to the player

Great. How about answering the question I asked now.

What is the obsession with carries. I asked where his tackle busts and clean breaks were achieved.

Carries is not an issue I have with Burrow at all. Him on the ball I am not suggesting is a bad thing, it's what he does that is. He could have 100 carries for all I care, as long as the majority of them he is running at the defence and then passing it on, instead of been tackled on every carry.

Sorry. He made 6 tackle busts, 1 clean break, 6 D/runs against Widnes. Including Manly Burrow has made 24 Busts this year.

No obsession with carries but in comparing Burrow with more traditional hookers carries and metres are important. Roby last year topped the charts for metres, carries and d/runs. The hooker is a key creative position together with the 2 half backs and you want these three to have their hands on the ball as much as possible.

You don't mention that Roby also topped the charts for tackles. And Roby, good though he is, was outplayed in the Grand Final and in the 4 Nations by hookers whose main skills were distribution and defensive intensity. Those are still the key parts of a hooker's team game.

I worry about Leeds going this way in the big games. It didn't work last year, where we didn't beat anyone decent until Buderus started playing 80, and against the 3 good teams we've played this year we lost to Wigan, beat Manly with McShane getting good game time and making 20+ tackles, and let in soft tries to Warrington, who didn't score more because of their extraordinary amount of unforced or careless errors.

Burrow's renewed attacking spark from hooker may be enough to compensate for this, but I'm not convinced.

This for me in total agreement.

It might not be liked, but for me had Wire not dropped the ball so much they would have comfortably beaten us on Friday. They had far better attacking structure than we did, and looked far more dangerous. The main attribute to that was the quick clearing and longer passing from the play the ball area.

Give me a class hooker of Buderus ilk any day of the week. And although I have had my doubts about McShane, I think your point about the Manly game is spot on.

To get back to my initial response for Andy Gilder, and thank you JC for confirming the stats. Out of 6 games of achieving 21 tackle busts and 3 clean breaks, which are good stats, 29% of the busts and 33% of the breaks were achieved in just one game against a pish poor side, which coincidentally he didn't play hooker and actually had the least carries in the games so far.

I would argue on that, that my theory of doing what he keeps doing less will result in better success.

Of course Buderus is a huge loss but IMO Burrow is doing a good job (including the WCC) and is doing it in his own way which at the moment is equally successful. I am less concerned regards his tackle count as we have a pack full of tacklers and Burrow can make the tackle on anyone when needed. Who knows Burrow may re-invent the way hookers play in future.

What's a big game?

Was last year's Grand Final a big game? I am sure I saw Burrow jump out of dummy half in that game and create a cracking try for Hall.

Was the WCC against manly a big game?

Was the last league game against Warrington a big game? He was MOM in that, despite Gotcha's insane ramblings.

How much bigger do the games Burrow dominates have to get before you will stop worrying?

Gotcha what Wire team were you watching?
They scored when we fecked up and only made serious yards on the back of penalties.
As pretty as there "long passing game" may have looked we beat them fair and square ,Watkins by plenty v Plug ,Mags ran them ragged and our pack more than handled Morley and co.
Now i know they're a very good team and no doubt will challenge we got a well deserved win and were clearly the better team over the full 80 minutes.
Also their structure with the ball was that good our defence had them panicking and making errors for fun.
Whilst i accept we can and need to improve why do you begrudge giving any sort of credit when we get a well deserved hard fought win?
Also agree G as much as i want to see Mcshane and Hood take the 9 reigns more permanently we've hardly struggled with RB playing their or reverting to his "free-role".

Also, were the Challenge Cup Finals of 2011 and 2010 big games and were people worried going into them with Buderus at hooker?

You do realise how biased and narrow minded that all sounds?

I did say, had Wire not kept dropping the ball. Had they done that they would have comfortably one. Let's not forget the harsh disallowing of their try also, like ours, that at that stage going in front would have only resulted in one result.

If you took out the bias, the true view is that without Wire dropping the ball and penalties, it would have been us struggling to score.

But anyway, we digress.

Burrow's performances in those games were very good. In the first (and best) one he wasn't playing at hooker, in the second one he was playing at hooker for less than half the game and in the third one, while Burrow played and distributed well, Leeds defence looked brittle and benefitted hugely from Warrington's careless play. The worry is not over Burrow's ability but rather over Leeds's defensive formation against able sides.

With regarding to the Warrington game the conditions played a part in them dropping the ball but equally so did our strong defence. We did not let them settle and I would argue we were well in control until our ill discipline let them back in the game. We resisted their fight back and finished well with 4 tries to 3 and deserved to win.

You say their main attribute "was the quick clearing and longer passing from the play the ball area." But this is not the typical way a hooker plays. In fact Burrow has been quite effective for us with longer passes from acting half back.

Turning to the Manly game Burrow made 96m, 16 carries (11D/Runs) 3 Busts, 11 tackles and one kick of 44m. Whilst McShane made 6m, 2 carries (2D/R) zero busts, 18 tackles, and 1 kick of 43m. So quite how this proves Burrow in a bad light I do not know.

You are wrong with your summary of the stats. Burrow has played 5 SL games. If you include the WCC game (as was not a pish poor side) I make it that Burrow has made 823m, 116 carries, 5 offloads, 86 D/Runs and 24 busts. Only in the Cas game (2) and the Manly game (3) did he make fewer than 4 busts per game.

So yes Burrow plays a different style to other hookers (so what?) but I do not see there is a strong case to say he is not being extremely effective or that either McShane or Hood would be more effective.

Maybe the Salford match is a good one for McShane to get some game time and for Burrow to take some well earned rest on the bench.

Yes they dropped the ball too much, but this was exactly because their 'better attacking structure' and quick long passes didn't suit the conditions. Good as Warrington are, they couldn't cope with playing at that pace with a slippery ball and a fired-up Rhinos defence. In this sense Leeds did outplay them. Leeds were also expansive at times but may have looked less dangerous because they did so at a pace that more suited a breezy drizzly evening. Maybe Smith's petulance at the end may have arisen from a grudging acceptance that in this respect Brian Mac got it right and he got it wrong.

In terms of the Burrow debate it seems to me that he's integral to the success of the team wherever and however long he plays in any given game. As long as he's terrorising opposition defences I don't really care what position he does it from.

Gotcha we won fair and square and the players i highlighted did the job required so how is that "narrow minded".
What's "narrow minded" is your attitude towards our team doing well clearly winning on merit yet its because "Wire made mistakes".
Now whatever our differing opinions on the win if's buts and maybe's mean jacks##t we beat them and having watched the game they were just as lucky to still be in the game at H/T which was caused mainly by our indiscipline and switching off for the last 10 minutes.
Nothing at all narrow minded about giving the team/players the credit they deserved maybe your "we're all doomed" specs need polishing or putting aside i'm more than happy with my Blue 'n' Amber ones and the 80 minutes on friday back that up imo.

How about the point re buderus?

Do we need a hooker better than Buderus?

On the wire win I thought they looked very dangerous with the ball and moved it wide very quickly. however the put the ball down very often which seemed to kill any momentum they had built up.

on Burrow I see him as a round peg in a square hole. he fits in there ok but there are gaps that he cant fill

Read again what you put instead of getting your knickers in a twist.

Your view was that Warrington only scored because of our errors and penalties. Yet the fact that Warrington dropped the ball, which is what gave us field position, was only down to Leeds defence.

You don't think that's biased? This despite Warrington making miles more metres in that 1st half from half as many play the balls.

Leeds did win fair and square, nobody's arguing any different, and I'm in agreement that the ref was poor. But you need to put down the superhero comics, because we weren't anything special. We got what every winning team needs a spot of luck.

At the risk of sounding repetitive I still think you're wrong. Wire tried to play their normal game in conditions that didn't suit it. they came unstuck as a result of that (as well as good Leeds defence). Doesn't matter how good you are or how impressive you look, driving at 110 mph on a greasy track isn't likely to get you safely over the finish line.

We've agreed/disagreed on many subjects and issues in the past and i notice how you respond to G1 and some others who disagree with you when you get all fired up when you perceive their replys to be patronising and childish yet you do the very same time and time again.


Nothing is in a twist our discipline is firmly in our control and some sloppy offloads or "switching off" were all down to us now watch 90% of the Wire errors and you'll see at least 1 Leeds defender in their faces or hitting them hard it's quite easy to distinguish between the 2.
As for the "Miles more metres" we must of done lands end to john 'o' groats in the 2nd half because on the Boots 'n' all stats section they only made 12 more so who's getting their panties in a twist?
Nothing you originally posted says we deserved to win and points completely to Wire been this superior force IF they hadn't dropped the ball you and many others make them out to be.
Yes we made errors yes we were far from "perfect" but we earned that win and played just as good as them and in some areas much better.

One of Warrington's "errors" was briers getting tackled in possession on the sixth tackle. That particular error was entirely attributable to fantastic play by Carl Ablett.

I'm sure if you analyzed others you would find similar pressure applied by Leeds defenders.

Warrington have been the most consistent team in the league going back to the start of last year. What an insult to assume their errors on Friday were unforced.

No dissagreeing with that. So why is it then that when that is flipped, that it's acceptable to say that Leeds errors were unenforced?

It's just a biased viewpoint that's all. Both teams defended extremely well on Friday, it's just IMO when Wire did hold the ball they looked a far more dangerous attacking team than we did, but we had more chances and better field position because of where the errors took place.

It isn't acceptable. Two teams went at it very hard. Both made too many errors to consider it a classic but it was still a good, hard fought game.

IMO, Leeds fully deserved their win and played a little bit better than Warrington and luck didn't come into it.

Hardaker to SO and Hall to centre anybody ??