Hardaker has got to be ahead of Tomkins for England.

I agree with that. I think he will pick tomkins tho unless he plays tomkins at 6.

Or Hardaker in the centres with Watkins

The answer to this question was a yes! I was wrong.

We played with a positive attitude last night and we looked a different team.

Although we played well there is still a lot of room for improvement and Leeds were under strength and were pretty poor.

1. We've been under strength all year.
2. Leeds had 3 missing. We've had that many missing all year but you haven't allowed that to be used as an excuse.
3. Leeds played poor ONLY because we didn't let them play well.

I see the glass half empty brigade are out in full force again!!!!

Except we had 6 missing - Aiton, Sutcliffe and JJB are all first choice players. And i don't think you can give too much credit to Saints for McGuire gifting you your first try or Childs regularly giving you the benefit of the doubt where knock ons were concerned.

Don't get me wrong, much better performance from your lot but Leeds helped you a lot.

They had Hardaker, Watkins, sutcliffe, Aiton and JJB missing off the top of my head so they had some serious strike players missing. Plus the Wembley hangover to take into account so let's not get carried away.

We can only play what's infront of us so that's not our problem but last night wasnt a top quality performance but a good win and a win we needed.

Sky really make me laugh. They totally wrote us off (fair with the way we played) but with one win and now we the best thing since sliced bread.

Obviously injuries to key players (on both sides) will always have an effect on the outcome of any match. Leeds are really missing Aiton...and one more injury blow to either McGuire or especially Sinfield will have a huge impact on who finishes where and with what come the season's end.

From you perspective I believe you may be potentially looking like peaking as a team at the right time. Better to have had the slump when you did rather than over the next few coming weeks !!!

An apparent back-to-form Walsh and Wilkin make a huge difference to your side. Walmsley is a belter.

Rather you guys win the GF again than the Wigan spoliers. (IF Leeds don't of course).

Blimey, well you could say Saints helped you out massively in them first 2 games through substandard performances and injuries to key players.

Leeds are stronger this season and this performance suddenly doesn't mean we're better, however, in a one off game anything can happen.

We needed a win just to keep the pressure off falling out of the top 4.

Now we need to pick up our game performances, next week will be a tough match too as it's last chance saloon for Cas to get into the top 4.

Warrington's season will be gone by the time we play them and Wigan may be sitting pretty in 2nd place. So we may get something out of those games, but as long as we keep the effort up then we my start to get some confidence back and some passes that stick.

I think next weeks game will be the yardstick, a similar or improved performance will tell us if we are going to be serous contenders towards the Grand Final. There is still loads of improvement we can make in attitude, performance and tactics, like people have already mentioned sometimes its a mental thing, if we want to get back on the bike its consistent good performances from now on with no back pedalling excuses.

It doesn't matter who's playing for Leeds. It's tough to play if you're constantly being penned in your own ten by an accurate kicking game.

Yes but would that kicking game have been so accurate if Leeds had fresher bodies in defence winning collisions and putting pressure on kickers.

Will Saints produce that kicking performance against a fresh team?

I thought we were picking up form after the semi final, then we collapsed like an Australian batting line up, so who knows what this win will do for us.

I thought my post was pretty objective tbh. I don't think there is any point in getting carried away with Friday night. There's a long way to go.

It might have been a win against a side with a hangover from wembley and a few out injured but with the previous four defeats fresh in the mind this win was absolutely massive. Taken on it's own it is just two points but after the other results confidence would have been pretty low, which was evident in the Huddersfield game and this win will provide an immeasurable boost in this area. Plus it got the monkey off our back with Leeds. Imagine going to Headingley in the play offs on the back of 4 losses whereas it looks a lot rosier going there on the back of a win.

Its only this season we,ve had this monkey on our back in the super league rounds. You could say with this win we have brought things back to normality we have one of the best if not the best winning records at Headingly over the last 4 or 5 years, it was way back in 2010 when they last won against us on there own grass. I would say this season its Leeds who have managed to shrug off the monkey. I'll answer the question in advance, yes we have a bigger monkey in the Grand Final with Leeds.

My point is that posters seem to use the negatives from Leeds performance rather than the positives from our performance as the reason we won.

Given that most of our kicks found the floor for once I don't think Hardaker would have made much difference.
Watkins is class so he was a big loss for them but Vea gives us lots of aggressive go forward, and would normally play on Watkins side so not sure Watkins would have had an easy night anyway if they had both played.

Saints played reasonably well with lots of room for improvement, mainly at halfback, so I prefer to think we contained Leeds very well knowing that we still have room for improvement.

This is an assumption. The idea that somehow Saints' players have a kind of "mental block" which stops them from performing.

I mean, it SOUNDS plausible. But there's no evidence to prove this argument.

And before you say, [i"Well, look at the results"[/i - you are aware of the gambler's fallacy?

It's amazing how often when you look at the head-to-head winning performances of two clubs over a hundred years the figures are incredibly close. Makes you think ...

Looking at the results in Grand Finals, I'm not so sure either.

2007: Saints were pretty much blown off the park. Not sure if they just switched off that day, or what.
2008: Everyone expected the 'S' to steamroller Leeds, and Anderson definitely lost it at half time as famously seen on the Sky cameras. A good candidate for the mental weakness theory.
2009: Was really close. I don't think Saints bottled it.
2011: Leeds definitely showed superior mental toughness in the last quarter, when Saints failed to kick on from the lead they had built up. Shenton's injury should have been better covered for.

Wouldn't any such issue with Sts players have gone with last year's win?

Besides which, 4 years is a long time in sport - had a quick look at the Leeds 2011 team and 7 players aren't at the club any more. I expect Sts would be similar if not even more changed.

If Leeds meet Sts in the GF I don't think players from either side would make much of the previous GFs TBH, even if the media do.

Let's say it really is possible to have a "mental block" (I'm not ruling it out. All I'm saying is there's no concrete evidence)

Results show they don't last forever. I remember back in the 80s and early 90s when it seemed as though Saints were beaten every time they took the field against Wigan.

I mean, if you're mentally beaten after half-a-dozen major defeats logic suggests you're even more so with each successive defeat. But if that were really true Saints would never have beaten Wigan in the Premiership Final - which was the stepping stone for pretty much all of Saints' SL success.

The truth is that no matter how good the players, no matter how great the advantage - ANY side can experience "one of THOSE" days in a Grand Final where nothing seems to stick, every ricochet drops fortuitously for the opposition, one after another key player falls victim to injury or some idiot gets himself sent off.

Murphy's Law applies equally to Rugby League.

I don't think it's a case of Saints having a mental block at Old Trafford, more a case Leeds having a knack of producing there. We did it again against Warrington in 2012.

That's why ANY opposition team could be wary of facing Leeds at Old Trafford if they get there. Not because they can't produce, but they know Leeds and Sinfield & co. do produce.

At least you can't win from 5th any more!