Disipline was poor at times we defended well but fell for a couple off sucker punch plays Best hit up was Gregg McNally on attack knockin Yere flyin on his backside awesome we looked jaded at times but had to work overtime defending All in All a mighty fine win against a good side Well Done to the lads Ref in my opinion was very poor Sheff where constanly well in front of the guy when he was standing 10 mtrs gave some very harsh decisions against Leigh
ps The food was a rip.off Pie n peas £4 cup of tea £2.10

Well I thought the Seagulls played very well and I must applaud them

they troubled us for long periods and played like we do keeping the ball alive when possible,that said the Seagulls scored 12 points while we were a man down with McNally being sin binned,but we dropped a fair bit of ball in difficult conditions , a biting cold wind and drizzle for most of the game.For me Ryan Brierley was MoM,,but I feel we missed Penky but Bob B had a good game as well I think the Seagulls are a well drilled side and 3rd spot in the Comp is not beyond them.

Having said this we will have to improve to beat Salford next week ,our attack looked good as always but our defence looks a bit brittle at times, still unbeaten and a decent following of Leythers.

This game was always going to be a tough encounter with the bookies giving Sheffield just 12 points start.
So it proved and Greg McNally would be the first to admit that his daft sin binning for kicking the ball away to delay the 20m restart on 53 minutes was plain daft and could easily have cost us the game. When we were back to 13 from 63 minutes our power, skill and fitness shone through and the game, in my view, was never in doubt.

Sheffield were stood in our line at the play the ball all afternoon and the numpty with the whistle blew for just two penalties for this offence - unbelievably both against Leigh. I was just glad that he didn't have to deal with any serious foul play otherwise things could have completely boiled over. The guy was clearly out of his depth.

A special mention for Bob Beswick - a performance above and beyond the call of duty today. He did the full 80 and controlled and directed throughout. With Lewis Foster on the bench the game was too delicately poised to take the risk. Lewis's time will come to show us what he can do but Paul made the right call by leaving Bob on, in these difficult circumstances.

I have never previously questioned Paul's decision making and I am a big fan of his but Gareth Hock is clearly not fit and has struggled in both of his appearances to date. I assume there must be a good reason why Ollie Wilkes and Tom Spencer, both looking fully fit and sharp, played a major part in the reserves versus Keighley on Thursday. Noting Penky's excellent recent form we can only presume he is injured otherwise he would have been playing in today's vitally important win.

We were starting to get on top of them when McNally got sin binned, which gave them the lift they needed.

Thought our forwards were good, and made yards in every tackle, but the passing in the backs was poor. If we'd kept it simple, we'd have probably scored a few tries like Emmitt's because our front rowers were more powerful than Sheffield's. Would need to play much much better next week, or Salford will give us a good hiding.

Disagree with that..The Worky game didn't go as planned with the departure of Fui..And Gareth did a brilliant job..

Photos - r82photography.photoshelter.com/ ... 2XjTJ7epHc

Photos - r82photography.photoshelter.com/ ... 2XjTJ7epHc

And injury to Platt meant he played a longer stint in first half than probably planned today. That said, I would bring Wilkes in for Salford game. Spencer as well.

:1tlmtlgrI have never previously questioned Paul's decision making and I am a big fan of his but Gareth Hock is clearly not fit and has struggled in both of his appearances to date

struggled last week, my @rse....how would you know if Gaz Hock isn't fit enough for your liking mate ?

Penky and Wilkes will be fresh for the big one, but who will the 9 forwards be??

Is the bus to Manchester still no: 26??

Everyone is entitled to an opinion and that includes me.
I did NOT say Gareth is not committed. I did NOT say he is carrying too much weight.
I did say, "Gareth Hock is clearly not fit and has struggled in both of his appearances to date."
As is the case for most people who post on here - this opinion is based on observation not fact.
It remains my opinion. Gareth looks to me like a guy carrying an injury.
If he is injured then my opinion would be to get him fit rather than risk making things worse - so he can make the contribution we all know he is capable of - come the business end of another great season, in the Middle 8's.

A good hard test match for the Leythers, just what was needed before Salford next weekend.

I have a sneaking admiration for the Seagulls. Always hard to beat, possibly even more so this year and a real prospect for the Top 4. Apparently a dozen full timers as well.

How do they do it on sub 1k crowds? They must have some top sponsorships or really shrewd money men in charge - could other clubs learn anything from them?

Hock has done alright but clearly isn't yet up to full fitness (of course not, he's had 6 weeks off) he's played long miniutes both yesterday & last week which will hopefuly have done him good. However if Fui is back & fully fit next week I'd play him rather than Hock, if Fui isn't fully fit well then only Rowley really knows who's in what state when the teams have to be named.

I expect Higson will come into the team sat against his home town club Wilkes n Penky both back not sure about Fui if he's 100% defo play if not bring Tom Spencer into the team with Barlow & Hopkins we have three really big forwards Gaz is class big and hard can't wait to see him and Fui in the same starting line up with Barlow and Hopkins

Leigh positives from yesterday:

Didn't give up. Won the battle in the forwards. Played with confidence and belief. Tackled well in middle of park. Showed their team sprirt and character again. Punished Sheffield's mistakes.

Best Leigh players yesterday:

Platt, Ridyard, Brierley, Beswick, Acton, Barlow and Emmitt. (all forwards did well really)

Leigh negatives from yesterday:

Lacked composure and too eager, at times, in attack. Average kicking game (yeah, the conditions were poor, but Eagles kicked better). Ill discipline.

And, as much as I hate to say it, the Hock looks set to boil-over at any given time. He's got everything as a prop (and more) and I can see, even at this early stage in his Leigh career, why people suggested weeks ago that he was "world class" ... He is, and hopefully will be again, awesome in a physical sense, but mentally? I am definitely not convinced.

Overall, it was a massive win for Leigh regarding the league table. Our forwards, in particular, were impressive physically. Sheffield's forwards were really struggling towards the end of the first half. Our backs did OK and were really tested defensively.

However, if we don't [iup our game[/i against Salford we'll be beaten. Sheffield played well, but we let them for the most part by not doing the basics well enough. We did play "dumb", as Rowey put it, for long periods. But if we learn from it then we'll be miles better for that match. In fact, it was probably just the kind of match we needed.

A couple of times yesterday he was targeted with friendly pats on the back and didn't react at all. I think the 2 penalties he gave away yesterday were both for the same offense "Of having a bad reputation". I am happy with his discipline for us so far.

Well I really hope he proves me wrong, but he strikes me as having some kind of "issues" and is set to boil over.

However, I don't want to be posting about negative stuff too often on here, so it's the last I will say on the matter for the time being.

There's been mention of "dumb rugby" after a few games, but seems to keep happening. I think it might be a side effect of difference in quality between top and bottom of this league, where bottom teams, can't recover if you make a break and we score from deep quite often. Seems to give a mindset that we have to score in every play, yet when we keep our composure we look very dangerous.

But if we can win away to Sheffield when not playing our best, then we're certainly doing something right, because if you'd offered me a 1 point win at kick off, I would've snatched your hands off!

Totally agree, esp' that last bit.

As funny as it sounds, I don't think we're currently on-form, despite being top of the league and with 20 wins on the bounce.

An on-form Leigh, say, against London at home a few weeks ago in the cup, would have had no problems with Sheffield yesterday.

The good thing, though, is that Rowley is very good at what he does - and he'll know where we're up to and what to do about it.

I didn’t go so can’t really say anything specific about yesterdays game but ……

I’ve said this before (so I’ll say it again

)

The difference in Northern hemisphere and Southern is their attitude, to off loads etc, here we say “Why did he try to pass it when no-one was there? That’s Dumb play!”

The Aussies etc say “Why wasn’t there someone there to catch it?”

Throw the thing backwards you’ve got 12 team mates with the chance of catching it, and have the confidence that they’re there to support you, or at least prevent the others from scoring.

Currently undefeated and our points for and against says we’re not doing to much wrong keep throwing it around for me, I can live with the odd lost ball. As dumb as it is.

Says imo....

With regards the 'dumb rugby' issue, we've done it quite a lot this season. It's as if we expect to score off every set, which is great to watch on one of those days where everything goes to hand and you end up putting 50-odd on London, 60 on Whitehaven. The thing that frustrates me at times is our lack of game management. It was probably most evident against Bradford this year. We always have at least four players on the pitch at one time, who is able to kick very well. Riddy, Brierley, McNally and pink/Beswick. Against the better opposition, should we make a good start, why don't we then proceed to use the kicking game for spells to frustrate and wear down the opponents? May not be as exciting to watch, but if this side can master this particular aspect of the game, there wouldn't be many situations it couldn't adapt to IMO.

Agree.

We can get away with that in this league, but we won't so much if we manage to take the step up to SL.

Of course there are times when we should be looking to secure field position or kill the game but in the main we should be looking to score off almost every set.

The alternative is what 5 drives and a kick, Salford or any SL teams would love that just 5 tackles to make each set, we need to be asking them to work a lot harder than that in defence.

For me seeing a team that's always off loading and supporting, actually makes defences hold off which in turn then creates the space, and makes you more likely to win the second phase ball anyway, I for one hope we throw caution to the wind on Saturday, play with a hot potato and run around like two year olds.

Charlie missed the last 2 tries due to a call of nature

but I've just seen the highlights on Eagles TV and must admit Emmitt try doesn't look as though he grounds the ball,what do you Leythers think?