Despite the title [url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_league/8301130.stmLeeds deserve their victory[/url

Jon manages to get his usual digs in...

True for the early parts of the game

But he also said this, when he could easily of had a whinge....





A very fair summary, when the guy must have been feeling gutted.

Exactly. Overall I think most of what he says in there is spot on, especially considering how soon after the final the interview must have been done.

Not really. I thought Leeds were rarely under real pressure. I can't think of much possesion Saints had on our line or any clean breaks apart from the flukey kick bouncing straight into Eastmonds hands for his try. Leeds probably had more scoring opportunities and more pressure on the Saints line during the first half.

If Wilkin thinks the Saints pack dominated then he is really living in his own little fantasy world. Saints did defend superbly, I think a lot more points would have been scored by Leeds if they hadn't.

He does make me smile when he whinges about slow play the balls and playing on a watered pitch. I guess he would like a return to the "great" game we had a few years ago where there would be 5 runs from dummy half and a kick. Cunningham/Higham rugby perhaps? Now that was reallllllyyyy entertaining..

If you rewatch the game on Sky its easy to get led into believing Saints dominated large spells of the game (since that's Stevo, Clarke and Eddie's take).

However, for me Carney has it right at half time - Saints had more possession but never looked a threat (their try being the result of a freak deflection). We were much more dangerous and came very close to scoring a couple of times before we actually did.

I think that was the usual case of TV having to tell a "story". For the neutrals or the casual viewer this works okay. It's when those who should know better buy in a well. The "story" was meant to be Sean Long. Anyone would think he had a terminal disease and this was the last game of a legend. I'm sure the Hull fans are thrilled to find out that Sean has basically retired from competitive rugby this weekend.

Wilkin is right. They did dominate the game for a large part. They didn't take their chances though and thats what matters.

Hardly a moan is it?

Interesting question.

You backed Saints and are dismissed as a know nowt whinger.

Take yourself off to the Saints board where you can bellyache with the other half pint sized losers!

This board is for winners!

With regard to watering the pitch - Manchester didnt have any rain for 24 hours and they were scared the grass would die....

As for Wilkin - some good news. Next year when we play them Sleepeasy have decided to make our shirts from their quilted bedding material so when he keep lying on after the tackle it will be nice and cosy for him! Steve picked this up in the live commentary that Stains were lying on after the tackle and slowing Leeds down and that they were getting away with it. Shame Stains Ganson didnt see that at the time.

I dare you to post that on their board.

It was the sprinklers!!!!!!!

That all seems pretty fair to me. No whinging at all, in fact, he's teken it better than you would expect him to. The point about watering the pitch is a good one aswell. I wondered about that when Webb was slid into the in-goal from a few yards out in the first half.

Just done it on their Entertainers forum.

Take the blinkers off. You are one of those fans who attends a game which was a total 50:50 decided by a penalty, a horrendous mistake and a ridiculous video ref decision. Yet you come home and they next day you make out that all your players smashed ours and that we never crossed the half way line unless 'our' referee helped us over.

The truth is that for almost the entire first half the play was in Leeds' half and Saints had more than enough possession and territory to have won the game. We've known how it would go for weeks, we couldn't score enough points to win the game, but to suggest we had no possession near your line is just stupid.

His comments seem reasonable. They did make much more yardage than us with ball in hand and enjoyed some long period of territorial dominance.

We countered that by regaining ground with a sublime kicking game and fantastic defence which meant for all their metres made and territorial advantage they didn't often look like breaching the line.

I have a real complex about the pundits and experts dis-respecting us at the moment but people are looking for something that isn't there with these comments.

Whilst I don't like to be contentious, much of what you've posted above is utter, utter b[iol[/ilocks.

There was no horrendous video ref decision.


The penalty in question and probably the mistakes too are down to a combination of poor play from one side and pressure from the other.

Saints had posession and territory for the opening 30 minutes but rarely troubled the Leeds line. That isn't to say the Saints forwards didn't make good yardage or appeared in control up to that point but if you can't break the defensive line they're worth nothing, and neither does it take any account of what appeared to be the Leeds game plan up to that point and then beyond.

In fairness I simply was plagiarising Brian Carney. You know, the one Sky pundit who got it right for last night when predicting the result.

Bitterness is hardly unexpected though (although the colossal irony factor regarding the "blinkers" comment was even a lot from you - my irony meter actually registered infinity for the first time ever).

Despite the harmless nature of my posting that I put on The Entertainers forum - guess what.... it has been deleted!

Ah well, I took the bet on..

You can keep saying it till the cows come home but it doesn't make it true!

No their wasn't, both feet were behind the ball as it was kicked.

IMO Sts had and have a better basic structure to their game than Leeds. Where Leeds have a definite edge is in strike power in the outside backs. If Sts had a decent set of threequarters they could and should score a lot more points. As it is they have two error-prone wingers, neither of whom are much threat with the ball, and yesterday had a glacial centre and a rookie who showed what they could achieve with a bit of punch out wide.

I'd hope that as well as the new signings, Bluey looks at the basics of structured play, because right across the field from our own line to the opposition, we don't often look like we have a plan in a set of six.

Thats pretty conclusive to me!

I think that Saints had a really good kicking game in the first half, which disappeared in the second half. Leeds had an average kicking game in the first half, which massively imrpoved in the second.

Don't really think our outside backs got much over theirs yesterday. It was just that their errors ended up being punished while ours didn't.