I know that Saints are the current league champions. Which means we are an excellent side.

Going in to any match there can only be three outcomes - win, lose or draw. Even the best sides go through sticky patches - usually when injuries are at their worst.

If we aren't as good as I think then the rest aren't as good as you're making out. As stated, it would only take a serious injury to ONE MAN on the Leeds side and they'd suddenly find it twice as difficult as they are now.

Warrington have fallen apart already.
Going into the Saints match Wigan were one game away from crisis point and they have all manner of problems to contend with in the pack.
Who else do we have to worry about? Hull KR? Cas? Huddersfied? Not likely.

All I know is I wouldn't wish too many posters in this thread fighting alongside me in a war. First sound of a bullet and you'd all be running in terror leaving me on my own to win the war.

I would like to see the Stats for the amount of offloads from Leeds, we were rubbish in wrapping up the ball in the tackle.

Don,t know what KC was thinking about, everyone could see we were losing composure in attack, we needed Walsh on after 15 mins to stop us freeloading ball to the Leeds centres.
Another poor game from Jones he,s too much of a liabilty in attack and defence, hopefully Percy tales over next week.

Makinson is slower than Wellens running the ball back, he runs then slows down looking for a gap then gets smothered, he,s not a full back.

Tonight was a tale of defending and individual mistakes. The start was a total calamity in defense, there must have been 30 missed tackles in the first 25 minutes. Whenever Leeds threw it wide we were open, it was horrendous, Leeds weren't doing anything special, just shifting it wide and they'd walk through a 10m gap in the defensive line. There just didn't seem to be any cohesion in the line at all, certain players were rushing out, others staying flat footed. McGuire had an absolute field day, he could go 20 metres skipping and dummying.

Once the game settled I thought we were comfortably in control. On the rare occasion we completed a set, we'd be over half way when we were kicking. The individual errors then cost us. I'm sick to death of Adam Swift personally, how many chances does he get exactly? He's far, far worse than Jamie Foster ever was and he at least brought the benefit of being able to kick goals. Our back row was feable tonight, Flanagan has been useful as a body but must be moved on now.

The worrying thing about tonight was the amazing gulf in the quality from 1-5. Leeds are vastly superior to us in every position there and they've got England's best two wingers out injured and were playing a second rower at centre. If Saints lose Walsh, we're going to have to find four new backs. Makinson, Percival and Burns are okay, the rest we need new blood. Leeds aren't that blessed in the front row, with only Cuthbertson who will be around next season, but I like the look of Sutcliffe. He's better than Sinfield ever was already, but I wish they would introduce a time limit for kicks, no need at all to wait two minutes before approaching the ball, then spend a minute preparing for the kick when you are in front of the posts.

We'll be fine this season once we sharpen up. The pack will be fine once Vea and Greenwood return but they've got to work on the defense. We're poor in the backs but they've got to come up with a way of playing to minimise the blow outs. We also need to sharpen up and stop making so many unforced errors. At least another three tries for the opposition directly as a result of unforced individual errors tonight. We've got to cut that out or we won't win a big game this season.

We do need a few players that can break tackles and do something from nothing. We have players that rely on a pass to break tackles

Which Leeds player tops the try-scorers list?
How many tries did Makinson get last season?
Who won the title last season?

So you need more than one quality prop to win titles, yet you ask where would Leeds have been without Peacock?

Don't get me wrong, forwards play a massive part in success.....but they aren't enough on there own. I know the forwards are Saints' strength and noticed for a while you've been eager to highlight this as to why they'll be champions again (if Saints strength was in the backs would you be telling us all that the props were the be all and end all of success???)....but seriously, whilst Saints have good forwards, they're aren't in some kind of whole other level where other teams can't touch or keep up to them to a respectable standard on the day.

Which man? You keep saying this but you have yet to comment when I keep mentioning the standard of players that Leeds have had out injured. We went and won away at Salford last week without Hall, Watkins and Briscoe (Three England first teamers). We have had Sinfield out for a chunk of the season, as well as JJB, Delaney, Leuleuai and others. We have lost one game out of 11. If Leeds have a better squad, or at least better squad management, then that is a HUGE part of the game, and your rants sound like nothing but an excuse from where I am sitting.

Your right, I don't rate many other teams in super league. It's not a strong comp.

I'm not writing us off, I've posted that I think we will be ok if we can keep key players injury free but we are not a good team, we are a decent team in a average comp.

Do I think we will win anytning this year ? Id have to say no I don't think we will. However, I wouldn't be shocked if we did but we need a massive massive improvement.

I firmly believe our entire game plan is to have big second rowers to do exactly that - and that's why Greenwood started like a house on fire, flanagan by contrast just doesn't offer anything, Thompson as much as he has been great doesn't offer the line running to bust the tackles and LMS keeps gettin sucked into the middle, leaving us constantly short out wide.

Our tactics haven't changed since we lost Vea, Greenwood and Percival out wide, and it really needs to. Problem is were 3 months away from them coming back...

The positives are there if you want to see them, but I've been waiting for a response for 4 weeks and not got one. This will either be the bottom of the trough, or there's a lot more pain to come ...

Swift is another of the scape goats on here along with lance and Wilkin but the are others just as bad who get a easy ride on here.


Tommy doesn't make the mistakes swift does but tommy is very poor with the ball. Very rare he beats a man. He's a top class finisher and defender but he's no better than Wello on his kick returns.

Turner is possibly the worst defensive centre in super league. He's worse than Sarginson but gets a easy ride.

Mose (need I say more)

Yet when Swifty has bad game he gets jumped on.

Still missing my point tho

How did greenwood and Vea make their breaks ?

Cunningham is ABSOLUTELY RIGHT not risking Walsh early. Losing the game means nothing. Losing Walsh because of nothing more than vanity is lunacy. The Grand Final isn't decided tonight. Leeds could win by a hundred and it would count for naught come kick-off at Old Trafford.



Give Jones a break. Centre is without doubt the hardest position to play defensively. It's even harder when you aren't playing consistently. For his age Jones is a fantastic talent.



Really? Because I thought he was a winger.

No leeds player tops the try scoring list.Makinson scored a lot of tries LAST season.Saints were worthy winners of the title LAST season. Wonderful

Peacock.

Exactly.

There aren't many if any who individually can break defences down these days, but we did have a team who could create enough confusion. It's easy to say xyz can't make something out of nothing, id be more concerned if we couldn't make the passes to break a team - but we need a plan b at the moment ,,,

Fair enough, I maybe just don't like Swift as he's so ugly and that annoys me as well. He's had a fair few bad games this season.

I've never been a fan of Turner, never rated him. He seems a couple of stone overweight. When he went the length of Langtree Park against us, he could shift. Now he can't and I agree entirely on his defending.

Mose is useless for a man of his size, but it's up to KC to get him firing and he's failing massively. An fired up Mose is a unique asset in SL, there is no one else like him. We're not getting enough out of him, but the use of him is bizarre at times. Tonight in his first spell Mose ten minutes chasing after Leeds players as they ran diagonally away from him. He had one 'run' where the ball was thrown to his feet and he had to trap it and pick it up and he was taken off. I understand he's lazy at times, but when you drag him off so quickly what is he supposed to do? He was better in his second spell but again was dragged off. If KC isn't happy with his effort, he shouldn't pick him.

"Bottom of the trough"? Good god, man! We're currently lying second whilst smack in the middle of one of the worst injury runs we've experienced in a long time. If that's rock bottom I'll take it every day of the week.

Oh ye of little, little faith.

So Leeds' whole reason for winning anything is built around a 37 year old prop forward? I think you need some kip, maybe tomorrow you will revisit this forum and wince.

Those currently criticising Turner's defence - precisely what do you think about Warrington's or Wigan's outside defence last night?

Seriously, was I watching a different game? Sarginson? The entire Warrington back division?

In case you haven't realised, these are two out of three of our major rivals!

Enjoy your win. Seriously.

Saints will be fine now Walsh is back, add in at least one of Greenwood or Vea into the back row to get Gash Flanagan out of the side and Saints will be at least up there challenging for trophies. The back line is terrible but the rest of the side looks very strong.

On another note I thought Savelio was superb and surely can't be dropped? Greg Richards however, continues to look like a pudding.

I do agree with this. Mose was repeatedly asked to play much longer spells last season. I really don't understand this fixation with 10 minute spells. It's putting too much pressure on Amor who does look a little underdone.

I'm not too concerned about Kyle. He's played brilliantly for us since he arrived. He's entitled to the odd dip in form. I do tend to agree with the opinion that he looks a little "light" this season. If anything he seems like someone whose coming back from a bad virus or something. Come the end of the season I'm sure he'll be ok.

Richards is at present, but he's very young. Agree on Savelio, we've got a couple of consecutive home games coming up so I'd play him in those.

Leeds look very exciting this season, what would you put that down to? I've got a theory it's to do with Sinfield not having anywhere near as much involvement but I've not seen all that much of Leeds?

Peacock has only really turned up in the 2/3 games. By his usual standards he was going through the motions in the first 6/7 rounds (even though his average is better than most props good days). Most Leeds fans will tell you that Cuthbertson has been our best prop this year and also Singlton has played a strong part too (hell even JJB was having a strong season before injury playing in the front row). Similarly if you ask Leeds fans who our best forward has been, quite a few will say Stevie Ward, again tonight his workload was huge and you seem to overlook the efforts of quite a few Leeds forwards to roll out an image from 1/2 years ago that it's solely Peacock......well it isn't anymore.