Play your 'senior' players at all costs ...and never learn from your past mistakes. Why else would we see BJB on the bench, another unused sub, Ward continuing at LC and worst of all Burrow back to hooker with the real Hooker being dropped.
McGuire too is selected on reputation alone now.

Back to being clueless in opposition 20. As soon as Sinfield opted to kick goals you knew we were doomed

Aiton was ill, not dropped

Aiton wasn't dropped he was I'll.

All these threads. I thought I had a problem with McDermot, but good god I think he is taking the blame far too much tonight.

Then I apologise for that one.....but the rest?

As said on another thread BJB over ward any day of the week. Saints were not going to let you through them then You need to find another way around them. BJB offers you this in the air with kicks and also alters the way saints have to defend in certain areas of the field. Even though was a close game Saints just needed to front up to stop you tonight.

BMD outfoxed by the cunning opposition ploy of fielding a reserve team!

Barstewards

nothing to do with Mcdermott's tactics.our halves didnt get a grip of things when we had all that ball in Saints 20 metre zone.

lots of credit to saints too though.they were fantastic in defence.

Someone in pre-season (sorry can't recall who) asked if the biggest obstacle facing Leeds this season was their own coach?

It's definitely up there somewhere on the list.

Despite their win I'd still say the same question of St Helens.

Quite right. A lot of tosh spoken on here about the coaches tactics. The tactics got us often enough in their 20 metre zone and as you say the players took wrong options couple with tremendous defence that kept out tries that on other occasions would have been scored. In the end it was a brilliant last minute try that did for us.

I thought Leeds would have brought more of an off loading game last night, I also thought your halves were a little under par. Peacock was massive with 250 metres but didn,t see much support play to feed off him.

Only three players made an offload. One of them twice.

Regardless of the players Saints had missing they had Super Leagues best hooker against Leeds best scrum half. With no. 9 being such an influential position now I didn't feel confident from the start. Credit to Saints, they were always on the front foot - credit to Leeds for holding out so long & almost sneaking a draw. No knee jerk coach bashing from me.

the gameplan was clear.keep it simple,complete sets,dominate in the forwards,get field position and the points will come.

we pretty much stuck to the gameplan well,just great defensive efforts and constantly poor and predictable options meant we didnt pile on the points we really should have.

Holding out? Holding out?

Have you watched the game or just listened? All the play was in Saints half. Leeds made over 500 metres more than Saints. Had more play the balls. Made Saints drop out five times.

Holding out was only one way mate. There is no credit to Leeds in that department.

Aiton's absence made a difference, assuming he'd have been picked. Burrow had a decent game scooting from dummy but his distribution from there left much to be desired. Not blaming him for this, it's simply not one of his strengths.

One of the earlier posters expressed doubts about Brown's abilities as a coach - I have to disagree. Considering the absences they had to cope with, I thought their organisation and application was superb.

Bizarrely, my main concern was our much-hyped three quarter line. Last night was the second game this year where a title rival nullified their threat almost entirely. I wouldn't categorise them as flat-track bullies just yet but Saints certainly gave them a lesson on how to attack.

Leeds came up against a Saints side who simply played on pure passion last night, you have copped this a couple of times now including rush's first game in charge when we played way above ourselves. It was a freak performance, that team couldn't do it week in week out, you were just unlucky to be in the firing line, again.

1. lets just keep turning the ball back inside



2. why oh why play Ward at centre - he looks lost



3. We have one of the best centres in the world - please give him the ball



4. Bailey has been dropped for disciplinary reasons - dont treat us like idiots be honest



5. why put all high kicks up to the competant full back and not the inexperienced winger



6. There is no lack of effort but gameplan and tactics were poor last night , and i cant remember the las time i came away from a game so dissapointed with our performance (maybe saints 2seasons ago)



7. Credit to Saints though with so many players out , they were deserved winners

Agree with these points in particular. I'd say I felt angry rather than disappointed last night. Sometimes when you can see a particular game plan isn't working it's time to try something else. Having spoken to a few other fans at H.T they also felt the "5 drives and aimless kick" was going to get us nowhere. Sinny is no Danny Brough and his so called "bombs" that land gently into the arms of fullbacks for the better teams aren't the answer. Same with his kick offs, Hardaker has more strength and skill from these situations and should be given the kick offs to ask questions from the receiver. It's not blame Sinny time, it's just pointing out a couple of glaring features that happen every game that our coach seems happy to ride with. I came away from Langtree last night feeling like I'd watched a re-run of Huddersfield in the cup last season, tons of possession in good areas, but ultimately little threat to the opponents try line. Credit to Saints for their defence, but I'm sure other decent teams would have been over a few times with that amount of territory and possession. Our pack lacks real punch and despite Peacocks yardage there's only ever Ablett who looks like breaking the line, another reason why the threequarters very rarely got the ball in broken space. All in all last night became a nagging reminder as to why we failed so miserably against the better teams last year.

I can't think of a more apt useage of the term holding out. Regardless of how much territory / possession we had we never looked like scoring. Saints breached our line on a few occasions in the second half & should have won by more. That we kept it level until (almost) the end is credit. Most other SL teams would have been wallopped. You obviously feel we should have mullerred them?!?!?

As difficult as it is for some people to accept, sometimes it's just not your night.

PS I watched it if you really need to know.

Leeds played with tactics to grind out a win and win by a point. Rather than giving the ball width and providing the best outside backs in the league with opportunities to win easy.

It was clear McDermott wanted to play one up rugby and complete the sets when really on the 4th and 5th tackles it should have been given to the backs to threaten Saints. Anyone can defend one up rugby.

Stevie Ward is not a centre, why place BJB on the bench if you have no intention of bringing him on.

I don't think we played particularly bad last night, it was just we played ridiculous tactics for the game. If we had got the offload game going and distributed to Watkins early more we would have won with ease.

I am very fed up of seeing McGuire too now. He is greedy, slow, always runs it in rather than pass and does some dumb things. Right at the end on the 4th tackle he ran towards touch when we were setting up for a drop goal. I'd 100% prefer Sutcliffe at 6 for the rest of the season.

McDermott seems unable to adapt to changes during the game and adapt his rotation policy. JJB playing with injured arm and unable to play at all in the second half.

Why not bring on JJB to full back, Hardaker to centre and use Ward in the second row. The second time this season we have left a sub on the bench for the full game. Just name sixteen players next time.

Offensive guile from the halves is lacking.With all that possession and territory they just did not ask enough questions of the saints defence.Add to that that there were some forwards in the Leeds pack who were passengers.Kirk with 4 carries, Clarkson is only championship quality, and Singleton's ball control is abysmal when he's on.

Six offloads in the whole match (3 Peacock, 2 Ablett, 1 Watkins) is pretty pathetic.

I'll defend Kirke in this instance, thought his defencewas outstanding, always winning the collision. He ran the ball in hard on his very rare carries too, it's a mystery why he didn't take it up more particularly as we were playing such one-out rugby and wouldn't know whether that's down to himor whether it was the plan.