If referees do start to speed the play the ball up, then Peacock in particular is going to become a liability.

You could penalise virtually every tackle he makes - rarely moves on the call, always pushes it right to the limit. Got pinged for it twice(?) last night at times when we had Huddersfield in their own half and struggling to get out.

You're always going to give some penalties away as a side, but you really can't afford to keep giving away avoidable ones.

On Aiton, I don't think it was as bad a dive as people are making out. It's not like he stayed on the floor, writhing around pretending he'd been hurt or gouged. Connor was stupid enough to put his hand in his face and push, Aiton fell over. It's no different to a tackled player trying to milk the penalty by flopping forward into the marker.

Some of Bentham's decision making last night was inconsistent and incredibly weak. If Brough was in his ear the whole first half and then again at half time, why not just bin him for it? Absolutely pointless to tick him off in the centre of the pitch at half time like a naughty schoolboy. Likewise when he gave a knock-on against Connor on half-time, who then stood up and went charging after him ranting and raving. If you're going to allow players to get away with stuff like that, don't expect them to have any respect for you.

Clearly whatever Anderson said to him at half-time worked in terms of scaring the bejesus out of him, as he refereed the second half completely differently to the first.

And if striking at the scrum is now a penalty offence, I look forward to seeing a dozen of those every game. That was absolutely baffling.

If Delaney is to come back in, I can only see it being for Kylie really. Achurch and Singleton have looked good on both sides of the ball this season, and whilst Kylie hasn't looked bad, his stints are becoming very short indeed.

We made a lot of mistakes, Hardaker must have dropped the ball or turned over posession on 50% of his carries - I think he turned it over his first 4 touches, and some of our penalties were soft - especially considering the epic quantity of cocking about at the PTB Hudds were allowed the second half - including walking 5 yards off the mark to play the ball. Simple rule ref, play if where you are tackled, not 5 yards further down the field.
I understand BMD's frustration at the second half reffing. Peacock was pinged for a "flop" when arguably the player was still on his way to the ground yet Hudds did that every single tackle. Leeds were trying to clear the ruck. However, Hudds were more physical than us second half and got on top of us in the middle which you could argue gave them some justification for pratting around a bit.

Hudds made hardly any mistakes, but their game plan was very limited. Their wings and centres got little ball in wide channels, we were looking to get Watkins and Moon into space, so I guess there is the chance that you may make some errors. On that alone I think we deserved to win the game.

Stevie Ward was the best player on the pitch. His defensive effort was massive and effective, Briscoe pushed him close - simply does not go on the floor in the tackle, always dangerous. Special mention to Moon, who I have criticised in the past for eating up his wingers space, great in and out to give Hall maximum chance to get in the corner. Great centre play.

Biggest prat of the night award - once again a clear winner in Phil Clarke. Really Phil, it's embarrasing now, please hide your dissapointment a little better when we win.

Ward's excellent support play and break was bettered by a lovely assist.

Moon must have read 'How To Be A Perfect Centre' when he put Hall in. Perfect, text book. Drew the winger and fullback, ate up all the space and released Hall. More of the same Mr Moon.

JP had a few senior moments BUT still got through a ton of work, moved us down the field all night long. Kylie is more of a concern and so its Singeltons lack of appetite to take the ball up, if he was called Kirke there would have been a 12 page thread already!

As for Achurch's miss late on, looked harder to not score than score!

As for Leeds in general, 3/3. cant complain with that but also nothing to get too excited about. all the trys we've conceeded this season, especially close to our try line, have been 'soft' so plenty to work on in training and also plenty of positives.

I don't see that any of our four backrows deserve to be dropped at the moment. Delaney's likeliest way back in is as interchange for JP carting the ball up the middle.

aye i thought that at the time, its a greasy night, get in low and hope momentum takes you over. bit harsh to give a knock on against it as well. hudds arms and legs all over the ball.

on Achurch, looking good! he really does seem to get better the more he plays. just need to hope he stays fit.

Far too many unforced errors. If we'd not kept on inviting Huddersfield to attack, we'd have won far more comfortably.

I'm guessing that we made far more errors than Huddersfield & overall gave away more penalties.
I'd also speculate, without knowing the stats, that we had to do more tackling than they did so to win against all those stats was a good effort.

Huddersfield had I think it was 18 more play the balls in the first half than Leeds did. Not sure whether that evened out in the second, but purely from watching the game it didn't seem to.

They play a very direct, very one-dimensional game that relies on them being able to bully sides down the middle. When that wasn't working for them in the first half hour they didn't seem to have a Plan B to change it around, similarly when they were chasing the game late on.

I think (hope) I'm correct in stating that last night's crowd was 12878.
Thanks to the 78 who bothered to make the trip all the way from Huddersfield.
Do their fans really deserve the team they've got?

www.superleague.co.uk/report/11015 Stats from the game... 13 errors in total, Hardaker with 5 of them. Cut them out and we'll be tough to beat. Peacock's stats look outstanding. What they don't show is how he struggled with the speed of the PTB, but overall he's still a huge asset to this team.

www.superleague.co.uk/report/11015 Stats from the game... 13 errors in total, Hardaker with 5 of them. Cut them out and we'll be tough to beat. Peacock's stats look outstanding. What they don't show is how he struggled with the speed of the PTB, but overall he's still a huge asset to this team.

45 tackles (3 misses) and the clean break for the Briscoe try is impressive from Ward.

Even more impressive (given his size) is 43 and no misses, plus a try and a huge assist in the Hall try, from Aiton. Rapidly developing into close to an 80 minute player.

Hookers should be 80 minute players nowadays IMO. The interchange hooker seems a redundant tactic now, that effects the balance of the side.

Is B-Rough's whinging infecting his team-mates? There was some epic dummy spitting last night. I think Anderson needs to have a word. They need to concentrate on their own game and not get upset at every perceived injustice.

Moon's one handed pick up of a loose ball at full speed was a great piece of skill. Just a shame McGuire dropped the resulting pass, that would have been an excellent try.

Yup. Thought Moon was quick to pass. He may have been bettered served keeping the ball and driving to the try line (for a possible try, or worst case a quick play the ball).

More to the point....


How fundamentally awful were that Take That tribute act?!

Bet Rabbi Williams laughs if he ever sees them

If Achurch scores, which he should have, it's 28-12 and we should go on to win comfortably.

Pleased to get the win in the end, I never really thought we looked like losing even when going behind oddly.

And nice to get that monkey off our backs as I know some of the players will be well aware of how long it is since we last beat those lot.

He certainly had a few tantrums last night. The lip was quivering and i swear he almost burst into tears when Aiton went in for the winner!

bit harsh that, we had at least 150 there



good game that could have gone either way, i thought after going 18-0 down the game was over and i feared a thrashing at that point, we showed good spirit to come back and eventually lead, but switched off to allow Aiton a soft score. i wouldn't have complained had it been a draw.
as for Mcdermott's ungracious after match interview, very poor i thought, both teams were guilty of messing around, pushing and shoving at the play the ball, yet he chooses to only see one side and fails to even mention Aiton's play acting.

but not too downhearted, we could have won again at headingley but it wasn't to be, hope you're all enjoying a rare win over the giants

spot on, it's a very frustrating aspect of our game at the moment, obviously picked it up watching Mcguire,Sinfield et al the last few yearsicon_smile.gif

Think they should seriously consider making someone else captain......but Brough would probably spit his dummy out about that too.

Quite how Connor avoided even being penalised for the one on half-time only Bentham knows.

Stormed up to the ref and got right in his face shouting the odds.

Once he let that go, Bentham had no chance of clamping down on anyone else.

That said, I loved the comedy moment in the second half when Brough stood up to the play the ball, stopped, wiped it on his jersey, then had a look at Bentham as much as to say "is that long enough, can I play it now?"

Crowd is down on last year continuing a trend from the second half of last season - it could be a timing issue i.e. June last year against February this year.

Thursday night, pretty mediocre weather for most of the day, the Giants poor start to the season.

All contributory factors I would have thought.

Was the crowd for the Widnes game up on the corresponding fixture from 2014?