I will start by saying I have not been to a live Game for 10 years or so after being an home and away Leigh fan for the previous 30 years my wife is a Warrington fan and as a treat we decided to go and really enjoyed it.
What can I say Leigh had a lot of endeavour but were totally outclassed by Warrington. The Match wasn't played as a friendly, it was a tough hard game ,and although I don't like saying it, Leigh looked a bit lightweight .I am sure they will bounce back from this ,and there were a few players that stood out for Leigh -Gareth Hock looked class ,but as we all know its his temper he needs to sort, but you can't deny he has no fear and if you took that aggression out of him he would be half the player. Fui seemed to have lost too much weight to me ,he looked small at the side of the Warrington Props .
Ridyard and Higson had good games and im sure Leigh won't play against many teams of Warrington's class this season. The game sadly had the look of the end of season games last year and Leigh will have to find a way to play at Super league level if they are to come up at the end of the season. I am not totally sure playing teams like Batley etc week in week out puts them in a good position to play against the bottom Super League clubs at the end of the season ,I hope im wrong ,but there still seems a massive gap between a full strength Super League side like todays Warrington and a great championship side. All in all still a very enjoyable change, and something I've not done for a while - The Leigh crowd were awesome, and I felt out of place stuck in the middle of all the Warrington fans ,what a great game Rugby league is .
come on you Leythers

Excellent post that Jon_t, Really enjoyed reading that.

Well negatives first. McNally out for 6-8 weeks is a huge loss, always a fantastic player & I hope he'll be back quickly. Defensively yet again we were absolutely atrocious. Defence was our weak point last season and what cost us against the SL teams in the QS8. Our backs especially out wide looked like they couldn't tackle at all, need to get our backs in the wrestling gym and doing some tackling practise. We also seemed to be following the ball not the game, a pass from Wire to miss out a player and all of a sudden they had a big overlap and the beating of us on the outside, desperately needs sorting. Hope today will be a lesson to focus on defence all season, I'm not particularly interested in us putting big scores on some of the lower Championship teams I'd far rather see us nil a few of them, get into that defensive mind set ready for SL quality attack which was our undoing in the Qualifiers last season.
Plus side we looked better ball in hand (when we had it) making fewer errors than last week.
Hopefully Rowley will put the players through a very intense training to address our defensive issues ready for the Batley game, got a long time until the Super 8s to address these issues but I hope we solve them quickly.

Opening poster is spot on.

Yes, this was a reality check. This just reminded me of the dire defensive perfomances in last season's play -offs. I can only see a repeat of last season, probably top the table again, then be totally unprepared defensively for the play-offs. I know it was only a friendly, but we were made to look like selling platers.

Come on. Yes it was disappointing we weren't better defensively especially as that's what cost us last season. But it was a preseason friendly (players tend not to risk themselves totally) and only the second time some of these players have played together. Don't think you can say we won't be a far better team in 7 months time after playing 23 Championship games! It's a friendly, the point is to find out what needs improvement before the season gets going properly, not to get a full view of the quality of the team.

Correct LS. It seems some folk are taking too much out of this friendly.

Anyone know why Beswick didn't play? Hopefully nothing too serious.

I know Pala, Barlow, Chase and Tonga are injured. I guess we can add McNally and Worthington to that list too now



Hansen had a 1 match ban, Reni had his visa problem so both should be fine for Batley.

Felt for Eze Harper today. Played his 1st 10 mins of pro rugby last week then today ended up playing nearly a full match against players of Wires quality. Talk about being thrown in at the deep end!

Good to see Brierley and Emmitt back on the field but neither of them looked up to full fitness, understandably.

I heard 3 different tales about Barlow this afternoon,he will be living with Lobby Ludd next.

On Facebook before the game this afternoon.

Just visited the Hull KR forum, a lot of their fans want Chris Chester sacked after their 60-20 drubbing at Hull fc.....Blimey, so it's not just the 'odd' Leyther who's OTT/barmy !!!!

I'm surprised we've not had the sack Rowley brigade out yet.

Indeed Cokey, maybe when we lose our 1st league game it will happen ! "We'll never win the Super League grand final with Rowley the muppet in charge !"

RL Express running a story in tomorrow's paper stating Barlow is set to stand trial for an alleged assault.

Bad day all round. Poor display, serious injuries, and now the news about barlow, well surely things must get better.
l

That's a new one I heard before,it seems Sam is responsible for everything these days, our bins wernt emptied on the designated day last way, o viously it was SAM fault.

It is. Am going 2 Green Lane chippy 4 lunch 2morro.

Well he cant be blamed for your bins charlie, but he is in court on 12th feb.

You posh git Frank !

I see the thug mentality hasn't left hillbilly heights.

That game was only a friendly by name, it felt a bit old school, aggression simmering underneath it throughout the 80 but never quite spilling over into full fisticuffs.

Not sure there was much holding back not wanting to risk injury.

Hokey your invincible team have lost a game , it happens get over it, it will not be the last this coming season,up the Fax.

First and foremost well played Warrington thought they controlled the game very well they stuck to their game plan, prevented us getting any real momentum, and when we did show any signs of being a threat, they defended superbly. Well done to them.

As for us Hock was our stand out player, for me his best performance in a Leigh shirt he was targeted by Warrington and although he stood his ground never really lost his cool preferring to just run or tackle hard, he was one of only a couple of our forwards who seemed able to work at the same pace as Warrington, the other and no great surprise was Higham who also worked very hard, as for the rest well it’s early days and we know they can play better and even when we get to the eights we won’t be playing the likes of Warrington but we still need to up the intensity we were too slow to cause them any great threat. If I was Rowl’s I’d be looking if possible to have a few behind closed doors training matches with the likes of Warrington prior to the eights.

Never good to have injuries and hopefully the lads will be back sooner rather than later and I suppose if you’re going to have them, better now than later. I also think we struggled a little with the pitch, we play and train on a carpet, yesterday although not terrible it was very soft and a lot softer than we are used to, we seemed to have a few more players slipping than they did and could have contributed to the injuries as I think Worthington slipped trying to make the tackle and then McNally either got caught up in the aftermath or also slipped, one things for sure it will be a lot worse at Batley especially at the deep end, need to give our boys longer studs and a couple of training sessions on Lake Marshes.

Good post glow.

Our middle stood up well, Weston was superb as was Hock, add Hansen & Maitua to our edges & we wouldn't have leaked half those points.

For me Weston & Hock must start, Fui needs to be interchange at 22-25.

We lost all shape in attack when Gregg went off, shows how much we need him in attack.