Not convinced it was that bad a pass to be honest. Briscoe was just too busy worrying about getting smashed to catch it. Took his eyes off the ball, which is unforgivable.

Mind, given some of the service he's had from Watkins in the second half of the season he probably didn't recognise what a ball aimed at his chest looked like.

Don't disagree in general but I also think Briscoe's positional sense in attack is very poor. He stands too narrow and flat a lot of the time, for example Watkins passed the ball into touch in the first half with Briscoe too far in field, had he been stood where he should have been, he'd have been sent clear down the flank.

TBF for all the talk of personnel changes and poor tactics what has cost us most is discipline and sacrificing for the cup.

The latter cost us 4 points vs Bradford and London. Discipline, Sinfield's headbutt cost us a point, Moon's shoulder 2 points and if Hardaker hadn't been banned I reckon IMO we'd have beaten Hudds at home which we lost by 2 after BJB had a 'mare dealing with Brough's kicks.

That's 11 points thrown away through cup sacrifice (not an issue next year) and player stupidity. Even with an "ageing team" and McDermott's tactics we should've strolled to 1st.

Surely after 27 rounds every single team can point to a litany of 'should have beens'.

My only gripe is that Wigan and Leeds are continually paired at Magic Weekend when Huddersfield got Bradford and Cas got Wakey.

Other than that it's two games against everyone and you end up roughly where you deserve.

In a nutshell. There is the over-riding theme that we didn't create enough or score enough points though. Although how any fan can look for solace in that beats me.

But we conceded less than every other team? don't understand why we have won everything based on that fact (sic)

I'd keep McGuire for one more year, if only to teach Hardaker how to be the support threat he was.

I also think we have potential in Achurch, he just doesnt seem to be played to his strengths. He clearly isnt a slouch (as his chase back proved), he also has an offload in him but we seem to be playing him like the new Ian Kirke. How we manage to play a pack with him and Ablett and lack so much dynamism in the middle i dont know.

As for Briscoe, typical of the Brough, Brown, Shenton type player. Looks a world beater playing for a middle of the road side where they play to his strengths and others are blamed for his deficiencies. Briscoe is adjusting to his best being expected every game and no excuses made for him. He looked good earlier season but its clear he lost his confidence. He needs to take responsibility for his own performance. There is still potential for a world class player in Briscoe, but he is 24, has nearly 200 SL appearances behind him and hasnt set the world on fire for 2 years now. If he doesnt step up next year then he might not be staying at Leeds and he wont get another job at a top club again.

We ought to be patient with Briscoe. He's already scored some spectacular tries in important games. He appears to be suffering from confidence issues, not unlike Matt King when he moved to Warrington (admittedly Hull is much nearer to Leeds than Melbourne is Warrington, although perhaps there isn't much in it in cultural terms).

The best way for Briscoe to succeed is to give him time to develop an understanding with Watkins, as well as working out how to bring both of them into games in a more effective way. I suspect the answer lies with our half-backs and lack of momentum from the forwards other than JP & KL, which has never lived up to the quality in our backline this season. The backs can't keep pulling us out of the fire with wonder tries, as Saturday's game proved.

How long do you give them, out of interest?

They have had a full season, and they are both clued up. Their partnership hasn't really improved as the season has gone on.

How long did BJB/Watkins take, that looked seamless instantly. Even this season when BJB has been dropped in from time to time they never needed any 'getting back up to speed'. The partnership just worked. Watkins and Briscoe need to do plenty in the off season and get up to speed sooner rather than later.

BJB and Watkins played together quite a bit in the academy to be fair.

Maybe they could try swapping Hall and Briscoe? Briscoe played down the left at Hull?

Briscoe's worst performances this season were on the l[ieft[/i wing

Did BJB play on the wing in the acadamey?

Even if true it's no excuse for Briscoe and Watkins not building up a better understanding in training when exploring and perfecting the team's attacking options. Cough!

(Funny thing is they seemed to have a better understanding [iearly [/iin the season)

I know he had a problem in the Bradford Game. God knows. Something isn't right.

Or better, send Briscoe to Salford instead of BJB and hope Kouhkash doesn't notice.

He most likely wouldn't notice ha

The thing about "partnerships" are they involve more than one man. Let's be honest it's not fashionable to lay any blame towards Watkins, but for about 5 games he was great and for me has been very poor for the majority of the year. When Watkins is poor it's the pivots and SR fault for not getting him the ball, but appears to be blameless in the poor partnership with briscoe. All briscoe fault

Well said Ferdy....it is always easier to blame the scapegoat. That seems to be Briscoe's fate at the moment. I still believe he is an improvement on BJB not least on (generally) bringing the ball back into play....maybe not enough to result in the no doubt bigger salary cap impact (replacing BJB on the wing really should not have been such a priority - I think most agreed on that).....but he IS here now and the club/coaching staff need to learn how to get the best out of him AND Watkins by coming up with some bluddy effective solutions in training on various attacking strategies.

.......and let's not forget signing Buderus should not have been a perceived priority signing whilst Diskin resided at the club........and look how well that signing turned out (in most people's opinions except G1 of course

)

Indeed, and let's not forget that another of G1's man crushes was a certain Aussie winger who was absolute mince for the first 18 months of his particular career...

I'd give Briscoe another season to shape up, but we have bigger problems to address within our pack.

The problems are not just in the squad.

I always think new signings need a years grace to settle into team patterns etc.Briscoe is no different.Signings that spring to mind (in previous years) who were slightly disappointing in their first season were McKenna,Scott Donald,Delaney,all these improved and did the club great credit.Jamie Mathiou never improved on his first season; I am slightly worried with Mitch Achurch who is about to enter his 3rd season,next year.Hope he is not another Jamie Mathiou.Although players like ET and Marcus Bai seemed to hit the ground running.

I personally think Achurch has improved from last year. I think the biggest issues are he seems to be a confidence sort of player needs to get on a bit of a roll. Early season playing second row thought he looked promising but a few injuries and a return to either bench warming or prop, which he doesn't do very well has not helped him

Delaney came good after everyone realised he wasn't really much cop as a centre.

Makes you wonder how he got a gig in the NRL at centre?