It is no co-incidence that the only game we have played well in this season is a half against Wakey and Newman was on the pitch.

Our current powderpuff centres are perhaps the worst players I've seen at Leeds in a long, long time.

We have TWO proper centres in the entire squad. One is sadly injured and the other isn't getting picked (god knows why). We haven't tried to recruit - just plugged the gap with squad players.

Briscoe is not a centre. He can't tackle or pass and his positioning is atrocious. He's also no longer a winger (remember when there was talk of him going to the NRL? - yeah me too).

Sutcliffe is probably the worst player i've seen at Leeds in the last 10 years. He also can't pass, or tackle and has even less pace than Briscoe. Again Hull at 31-0 down he was laughing and joking with Connor. 18 months ago he'd essentially signed for Cas and announced he was leaving before CV hit and he came back with his tails between his legs.

I would actually prefer Joe Vickery in the side over either of those two.

Why we haven't tried to bring anyone in is a mystery.


..and don't get me started on Handley...

What’s your issue with Handley? You are quite correct about out centres but that in turn affects our Wingers, Handley has done nothing wrong and doesn’t deserve to be lumped in with the players that aren’t good enough!

Are you Gotcha going by a different username ?

I think Handley's OK? In any event wing isn't the problem. If he gets fit and wants to play Fusitu'a should be good, Handley is solid and Tindall looks like he could be handy with experience.

Agree with the centres. Sutcliffe simply shouldn't be near the club. Had we not re-signed him on a daft long-term contract he would just have slid down the leagues to the level of his ability. Briscoe simply isn't a centre, and again shouldn't have been re-signed. Newman's injury is unfortunate, but its highlighted just how bad these two are, especially with Broadbent not even being given a chance. Broadbent may not be the greatest but he has a touch of class and at least is a bit of a threat with the ball. Sutcliffe and Briscoe don't have size, speed or any clue how to set up their winger.

I understand the frustration with Austin and Sezer, but I'll keep saying it. We can't play tight because our pack is Liliputian. We can't go wide because of the numpties in the centres and a full back who can't be relied on to add width. Then we have a bench hooker who kills momentum because his passing would be considered terrible in junior rugby. Its no surprise though that Agar overused Dwyer - dummy half runs are about all this team has got.

I'm genuinely not sure what the halfbacks can do in that situation. We could have Lewis and Sterling at halfback but even they'd struggle to make this team a threat.

That's why it will be vital for us to get Newman, Fusitu'a, Myler and hopefully Holroyd back. We will look quite different because we will have attacking threat and some kind of physical presence.

Worst SL centre pairing by an absolute mile.

Apparently the lad from Leigh is pretty good. Might be a good recruit for next season? Anyone seen him?

I think all championship centres would be better than our pairing.

Handley is a white elephant. He scores tries (that is his job) but he flies in far to much, can't tackle, actually isn't very fast and then you had the atrocity of having a captain stood on the wing!

I guess it doesn't help him, or Fusitu'a when the centres cant even pass properly.

I wonder how much money would have to change hands for Fev to take Thompson and us to get Leilua in return. I'm not saying Joey is sensational, but he's better than the lump of wood that normally wears our number 4 shirt...

What I'd really like to see is us put a stake in the ground and say that when fit, Broadbent and Newman are our first choice 3 & 4. We must start building for the future.

Newman, definitely. I'm less sure about Broadbent. If we go down the projects route them first we need a coach that can make that process work.

I don't know whether Broadbent will be good enough but I know Briscoe and Sutcliffe aren't. Why not give Broadbent starting centre for the rest of the season to determine whether he is up to it or not.

Fair enough, no problem with going with him til end of season. But I think at this stage I'd want to know he'd be developed properly before seeing him as our long term centre.
Appoint a Brian Mac type and we've another Liam Sutcliffe on our hands. That style of coach and a Joel Moon type signing makes better sense. A Tony Smith type lends itself better to youngsters.

Duplicate

Hate to burst your bubble but when you played us (wakey) the only reason you won and had success on the edges was because we had no centres and a young winger making his debut. We had to play 2 forwards in centres and you fell lucky. Had we had a few centres I think it would have been a completely different score line.

Centres injured: Tupou, Hall, Lyne, Minns, Croft.

Wingers : Lineham, Kershaw, Tanivalu.

There may have been a few more.

Leeds got lucky and caught our forwards who were defending our wide early on.

One thing I will say is Corey Hall has been excellent for us at centre. Lads got a lot of class.

Beat me to it Trojan
Hall is different class to both Sutcliffe and Briscoe.
I`ve been harping on about Sutcliffe and Briscoe for years but many on here have said that Sutcliffe will go well at centre and Briscoe has been a good servant of Leeds and deserves his chance.
Both should be no where near the 17.
Koni`s better than both put together.

Trojan - don't disagree. Obviously playing forwards in the centres against Leeds was a big problem. I'm also glad Hall is going well.

Right now we have a problem in that by far our best centre is injured, our left centre is awful and we keep picking an ageing winger on the right. The only options we have are to give Broadbent a go, or possibly look to Edwards or even Mellor. I'm not sure how they could be worse than last week's pairing.

Yes apologies.

I think my overarching point was that Newman actually showed desire and that lifted others. When he went off, they visibly deflated.

Hall was a good prospect, i though he was a bit lightweight - but he's been excellent for Wakey.

Even more reason to hold our head in hands by releasing an actual centre.

The frustrating thing is we have a queue of potentially very good young centres. Broadbent, who needs to be given a shot otherwise he'll likely leave at the end of the season; Edwards, still a teenager, who is on a season long loan at York, and young Simpson who has bags of pace. A really good coach could make all the difference to these lads as well as getting Newman to the next level. So important we get the right man.

It’s a tough spot for Leeds tbh. Your not without some young players with potential. Perhaps it’s time to try players like Broadbent in the centre. He may surprise like Hall who is only 19. It’s not an ideal situation for you guys by the looks as you seem to be in a transition stage where you have a few young centres not fully ready for SL action and a few who are probably past their sell by date.

Leeds probably need some fresh blood in centre. I do rate Handley and Newman though. I honestly don’t know how we have done it at Wakey but all our academy lads from last year who won almost every game all look like SL players in the making.

Everyone knows my thoughts on releasing Hurrell, but just watched the Wakey highlights. Corey Hall, what a talent. Skill, pace, intelligence. What are we doing!!

Where does all this Handley bashing come from?
The only highlight from that awful Hull game was Handley chasing down Swift who had a 5m start.
Put a good centre inside him and he wont have to leave his wing as much and will score tries for fun

Sir Kev and Agar thought Sutcliffe and Briscoe were better than Hall and Hurrell.
It seems the only person getting blamed for bringing in players is Agar and now it`s all GH`s fault whilst Sir Kev gets away with the shambles we are in.

To be fair I don't remember everyone getting upset when Hall left? Hurrell to an extent, but the prevailing view is that he hadn't performed as a marquee player, so again there wasn't a huge amount of complaint when he left, especially as we'd signed Fusitu'a.

With hindsight they would have made a big difference this season, but mainly because Newman has only played half a game, which nobody saw coming.

What's made it worse is persevering with the pair of them despite them being amongst our weakest players. Sutcliffe we could get away with if the rest of the team was going OK, but not Briscoe, and we do have an alternative who has only been given one chance.

I notice Sutcliffe and Briscoe are both carping on about positives in the YEP. I'd say the main positive is that both are being paid SL wages for doing sweet FA.

Along with so many other players they talk about discipline etc as a team. No sign of them putting their hands up to say "I'm not playing well enough". Not "we" - "me". I know its only interviews but I'd say that's the root of some of our issues. Nobody taking responsibility for themselves, let alone trying to push everyone else.

What's been troubling to see is that we've had players leave and go on to perform better at their new clubs.

Some very dubious decisions were made last year. Not much point blaming anyone now, we just need to work +++ on improving the quality over next 2 years, and Not relying on players with bad injury records.

But most of the decisions for this year were accepted or at least understood?

The exception was prop - I'm not sure anyone outside of Leeds management thought our pack didn't look at least one prop light. Its like they looked at losses where our pack got steamrolled and just ignored them.

As it turns out due to Holroyd's injuries and bad discipline amongst the rest we've generally been more like two short every game. And the nagging fear about lack of real size amongst the other props being an issue has come true as well.

Notice even Pete Smith was getting stuck in about management's decision not to recruit a prop. Signing Fusitu'a was a gamble and though he does look a fine player when fit, you would have to say that it has backfired at this early stage. Let's hope it pays off over time.