The briers and cooper effect

Never a red.

it was

Nah it was only 6 months too late and direct contact to the head. Don't be daft.

You've got to give Leeds a lot of credit, their defence has been top class here.
We've looked slightly off rhythm in attack and by god we miss Farrell.

Completely bottled that. All that field position and pressure in the first half and we took 4 points only from it.

Disappointing end to a promising season, missed Cust & Farrell tonight.

Did Ellis even play tonight? Don't remember seeing him.

Not wanting to sound like sour grapes (it might be a bit) but this seasons Leeds must be the worst team to make the grand final. We’ve thrown out another shocking defensive performance against them, fair play to their defence, it was top notch but we’ve gifted this to them, dominated for 45 minutes and then just let them score a couple of soft try’s and then a shocking red card to kill the game in a 5-10 minute period.

Faz and Cust big misses, Tommy retiring probably for the best as he did nothing creative even when we were on top.

The lack of proper centres kills us in tight games. The first half we should have been much further ahead based on posession but never looked that likely to score.Second half with French going off and Isa and KPP as centres then the sending off meant we had no chance unless some individual brilliance pulled something out of the bag.

Very poor from our creative players tonight. We've had 2 week off and look like we haven't spent 5 minutes thinking about how we might break down a defence.

Even with 12 men we looked dominant, making big yards every set but as soon as we got to their line we looked clueless, great defence from Leeds but I feel we should have been looking to offload a lot more in and around their line to disrupt their defensive line.

Firstly massive credit to Leeds. Incredible turn around and what a ride they are on!

Defence in the first half won it.

Thought we turned up but something felt a bit off with our attack all night.

Lack of skill in the centres evident.

Congrats to Tommy on a great career.

Matty Peet will bring us lots of success.

Let the trolls have there moment.

This defeat will make the next GF win even sweeter.

Maybe we have become a bit drawn in by the Field/French effect over the last few games and lost some of the structure in our game, take those two out and the rest of the team hasn't stepped up enough (Marshall excepted).

dominating field position isnt everything though - the fact you only scored 4 in the first half shows how resiliant our defence was.
i dont think you created one other clear cut scoring chance in the first half, and we were just so clinical after the half
you can say your attack was clunky but our goal line defence was fantastic
good game, but we deserved it in the end

Ellis for me has been hugely disappointing after a great start. I’m not sure what went wrong with him but he has been terrible the last few months.

It does sound like sour grapes...

10 weeks ago, i'd have agreed with you. But we've improved beyond what anyone would have expected, without ever really putting out our best side.

Fair play to Leeds, played us off the park. good luck in the GF

I’m normally very lenient with my view on foul play but that was a red imo, I certainly expected it to be a red and don’t think we can complain about it going off other sendings off this season. I think this was actually one that looked better in slow motion than it did in real time, it was pure frustration from Bateman and has cost us any chance to win the game.

I’ve not seen it on tv yet, but saw it on the screen and it seemed harsh to me.

Certainly no malice.

Leeds fan in peace. Just watched Matty Peet post match. What a great bloke he is. Spoke very well in what must be a disappointing night. Not often do you see that much dignity in defeat from a coach. Look forward to next year. All the best.

Same for Smith, 2 very humble men and clearly quality coaches.

Kind of blokes teams want to play for.

It’s not everything as was proven tonight but you won’t win many games with stats like tonight, even with 12 men we were still on top.
That’s 2 games now where we’ve had loads of ball on your line and struggled to break you down so I give full credit to your goal line defence, reminded me of our attack under Lam.

Smith and Tommy were poor tonight, Cust was a huge miss.

Both our halves seemed nervous and seemed to snatch at chances when he had field position.

Cust is such a level headed player who offers a calming influence and composure, qualities which were badly missed tonight.

In todays game it’s a red, no question imo. As I said earlier I thought the slow mo replay made it look better than it was, at full pace it looked a lot worse and it was clear that there was frustration behind that after finding ourselves behind in a game we really shouldn’t have been. Bateman I imagine is distraught and to compound that Sezer can’t play in the grand final which is heart breaking for the bloke.

I thought Smiths kicking was decent and it gave us the platform to keep the pressure on with regards to territory in terms first half outside of that Smith, Tommy and Powell created nothing really but even though it was frustrating to only be 2 ahead at half time i felt we had landed enough blows to soften Leeds up in the second half and wear them down but the 5/10 minutes of madness from us conceding 2 soft try’s and then the red card have ultimately cost us the game, it’s given Leeds the extra belief they needed and obviously the numerical advantage.
Fair play to Leeds that was amazing goal line defence but I do stand by my statement and I don’t think this Leeds side is great, I could see Saints putting a beating on them next week.