They ripped us apart time after time. The speed and accuracy of their passing was tremendous. Far supperior to ours.

Bang on the mark there. The people who keep reffering to the fact that we're champs and top of league and everything is great at the moment are deluded. The fact of the matter is at present we are not playing no where near as good as Saints. Aleady 2 trophies down out of 3 is not great. Only positive is there's plenty of time for things to change if a top addition to the squad is made. Also Saints could well feel the effects of a much longer cup run than us come the end of the season which could give us an advantage at GF time.

With Bulls, and Hull out of the cup already, your only really looking at Wigan

Huddersfield and Catalans away as tough fixtures for the scousers. Other than these saints could send their reserve team out and still win the competition. They should be able to get enough rest in this season

But then again, I have seen leeds do it to other teams, so its not as if Leeds cant do it. I think part of the problem is that the Leeds half backs dont link up like the Saints half backs do. A lot of the time, you see McGuire or Burrow just trying to create something themselves, by using their pace and step. The both step inside and out, looking for a gap and then when the gap doesnt appear, they just pass to the centre.

On the rare oaccasions they link up together, and have good runners, running good lines, your attacking structure is just as good as Saints is.

true... oh well we're doomed

Yes you do have a point there - probably down to the coach though is that...??

So the consensus is to move Donald back to the left, start to be more positive in attacking earlier in a game with more ball movement to find the openings. Also sign a big fast centre. Easy really - whose going to tell GH and Bluey?

Leeds tend to use stand-off at one side and scrum-half the other, whereas saints use both together which makes them have a much more attacking style of play.

IMO the gulf in class in the final eliminator last year was greater (and yet somehow we turned that around). I thought Saints were brilliant in defence yesterday and we had a bad day at the office all round.

Scorelines mean nothing to me, unless its the winning.

Saints yesterday to me, played better than I have ever seen them play in the last couple of years.

When they beat us in last years eliminator I still had confidence we would win the Gf, because I felt we were better than them. We still seemed to have plenty left in us.

This season that confidence has gone, and yesterday we looked a well beaten side. I dont think Leeds had anything else to throw at them.

HKR at home

Youve won the last 2 Grand Finals so why worry about your style of play?

We absolutely drilled you in the eliminator, yesterday was nowhere near as bad.

Leeds are still top drawer, and when you're offload game got going you looked very dangerous.

Unfortunately we've seemed to have cut out the offload game. Some were saying we were trying to score on every set early last year, actually that seems to suit us quite well, sometimes you have play to your advantages, not to what seems the most logical.

Im not trying to be funny or owt but that was not eliminator.

Last season, in the eliminator he means

Im sure we played Wigan in the eliminator last season.

Alright, qualifying semi or whatever the fook it's called.

Not sure why everyone is so surprised we looked the better side - we've been the better side for years, just that pesky trip to old trafford . . . .

Pedantic much?

one good point nobody,me included, has mentioned is we stumbled through most of 2007 in unconvincing style. in fact we were very average for most of it.
it could be that because of the world cup bluey has deliberately gone for a slow start and was unlucky to draw saints early. time will tell on that one.
speaking to an ex SL player today at work,he is now a contractor, his words were" for'ards not big or tough enough.you need a couple of nasty feckers in there".
can't argue with that!

there is still time to get better, it's early. however the balance of the side must improve. a right centre and forward is a must for me, especially a centre. george carmont till the end of the season now gleeson has signed?

How old's Carmont? He's over 30 I think, if Senior's staying for another year then we'd have 2 over 30 years centres, Watkins will be able to step up by the end of next year IMO and we'll have to see how Gibson develops. But if he doesn't it'll just be delaying another overseas player, the best option is to get an overseas quality centre who we can get on a long term contract then give Senior another year then Watkins will step up.

someone such as carmont for example will give watkins an extra year to develop.he would still get plenty of games

He's a left centre though isn't he???????

Yes, but Senior can play right centre as well, he did it at Cardiff and in the Grand Final.

I'm ignoring the whole centre debate because I think the club's doing the right thing there. I think we lack some destructive running in the forwards, with really only Laut'iti and Leuluai as hard hitters with the ball - and Ali is often not that fit and Leuluai only plays in spells. If Hock had better hands and discipline I'd have him in a second.

The 'pace' stuff's b*lls IMO. The backs are reasonably quick as a unit, and McGuire-Burrow are probably faster than most halfback pairings. In any event everyone looks a yard faster when the attack is working and pedestrian when its not.

My issue is that the structure of the team looks poor. When you get near the opposition line, there should be a clear plan for the 5 tackles, which only changes if an opportunity arises or someone stuffs it up.

With Leeds it appears that whilst the 'elements' of a planned set are there (i.e. a couple of drives to suck in the forwards then start moving wider) this really doesn't seem to be done with the clear intent of dragging the defence around and with a full understanding by the team of what plays will be run on each tackle.

I'd like to see McGuire and Burrow in at first receiver more often, with Sinfield further out. He provides structure but the other two need to take more responsibility for the team than they do, and McGuire in particular out wide seems to run his centre out of space quite regularly (another reason why Gibson may not be looking the best).

As I say, I think it's pretty poor that with thiose three plus Webb and Diskin/Buderus that we aren't the most dangerous side in the league close to the opponents line.

To be fair that was also something I felt at times when Smith was coach as well. I do wonder if it's down to our 'plan' being more around making sure all of our 'playmakers' get the ball. All I know is I've seen sides with a single attacking ball handler look more structured and therefore dangerous near the tryline than Leeds.