Indeed I think dear old Tom got out Briscoe'd by Carlos and that effort goes ahead of Toms effort when in the black and white of denying Fox



Actually don't know why he didn't just put the ball down instead of taking another roll, but still his loss.

Just wonder what the score would have been with better discipline and ball control.

My worry is that the massive defensive shifts we’re putting in will catch up with us at some point.

I do think we'll struggle to back it up on Friday if I'm honest.

That is my concern moving forward and the reason I've been critical of the ill discipline and I believe that is likely the reason others have commented on it.

No one is questioning the defensive resolve as its night & day compared to pre BH days but we can't keep relying on this to get us out of trouble as like you say it will at some point catch up with us particularly with a small squad. Which again is why questions are being asked in regards to the bench selection and they way its been used or not in games.

After feeling underwhelmed in the manner of the Catalans defeat, if someone had told me we’d go to Headingley and put in a gutsy rather than a classy performance, in appalling weather, that we’d continue to be the leagues re-start champions and our general indiscipline would not be good either, meaning we had to defend far more than we should be......

But...we would score 3 tries to their 2 and win 18-12 to take the 2 points home , whilst putting in a defensive performance that just a season ago would would have been beyond us.

I would have taken that any day of the week!

The lads defended for each other like lives depended on it for large periods of that 2nd half, bodies on the line everywhere, its just so uplifting to see our team refuse to wilt when faced with wave after wave of attacks. It was like we turned them back then said “here’s the ball ... have another go”.

Winning a game that way is stressful but we know and they know that when it really matters they can defend really well. And that self belief is the foundation of a top side.
Yes we have to have be more creative in attack, but it’s early days and we’re addressing the biggest fault first. I’m sure when Brett and Gaz are happy with defending, they will focus on scoring tries.
Even as a work in progress we can still win, even though we are not the finished item.

For me, that was a great win. Winning like that, despite playing really poorly, with low completion rate, high penalty count, in the past would have seen us with a mauling. As Uppo says, the defence was the important thing we had to change, the soft underbelly that sees us concede a try, and then 2 or 3 in quick succession. That appears to have been resolved. The attack will come. Is that the first game in 4, that we have not had someone sin-binned? As the weather gets better, we will get confident that our defence is strong enough to hold teams out, so can play a bit more expansively

Josh Griffin's stats 128m 3 tackle busts 2 clean breaks 1 assist 1 try HDM Star man League Express Game Star https://www.totalrl.com/leeds-v-hullfc/ Top centre

Josh Griffin's stats 128m 3 tackle busts 2 clean breaks 1 assist 1 try HDM Star man League Express Game Star https://www.totalrl.com/leeds-v-hullfc/ Top centre

Quote ="Mrs Barista"Josh Griffin's stats 128m 3 tackle busts 2 clean breaks 1 assist 1 try HDM Star man League Express Game Star https://www.totalrl.com/leeds-v-hullfc/ Top centre '" Super Griff, as did Ratu, showing Konrad the benefit of attending the Harry Houdini school for escapology.

Quote ="Mrs Barista"Josh Griffin's stats 128m 3 tackle busts 2 clean breaks 1 assist 1 try HDM Star man League Express Game Star https://www.totalrl.com/leeds-v-hullfc/ Top centre '" Super Griff, as did Ratu, showing Konrad the benefit of attending the Harry Houdini school for escapology.

I think Chris71 has pretty much summed up my thoughts. I thought that on the whole it was really quite a poor performance in a lot of ways. Yes the weather was terrible and you do expect some mistakes when it's like that. But we did alot of dumb things too. I'm not singling out Manu Ma'u, but the first thing that comes to mind was his pass straight to Hurrell which came at a time when we had already soaked up a lot of pressure and finally looked like getting out of our half only to invite them right back in again. There were plenty of other examples of sloppy play the balls, loose carries, needless hands in at the ruck etc. You can only blame the weather so much. These are basic things that professional players shouldn't be doing regardless of the conditions.

All that said, we again showed that our attitude and togetherness and will to win is ten times what it has been in recent years. Despite everything I never thought we would lose that game last night. Our defence was organised and busy and aggressive and everyone has switched on. So long as we can do that we will always be in games. But there is a lot of work to do when we have the ball. One moment of Connor brilliance last night and two moments of Hurrell comedy. Aside from that we created nothing. We need big improvements. Although just completing some sets would be a start after last night.

Finally I don't understand the sly digs and bickering amongst supporters. We are here to discuss the game. When we win it doesn't mean everything was perfect just as when we lose it doesn't mean it's a disaster. Everyone sees things a different way. Bonaire might be one of the more negative voices on here but he does give credit where its due and I can tell that he cares deeply about the club (I'm assuming you're a guy Bonaire, apologies if I've got that wrong). Being positive about everything all the time doesn't make you a better supporter than someone who points out the negatives when they see them.

The errors and lack of flowing attack yesterday can in part be attributed to the weather, but more worrying to me is the extent of penalties and set restarts we are regularly conceding.

On the plus side we didn't have anyone sin binned this week!

To me it’s pretty simple, our defence has been laughable, we were a team disjointed, unhappy and it showed in abject performances, resulting in alarming score-lines.

Our coaches have done a fantastic job in resolving this issue, we are far from the finished article, we all know we need to play more attacking footy, but come on, a poor performance, we hardly had the ball, three tries to two, and we beat one of our most difficult opponents on their own ground. Without half of the front row.

Enjoy the ugly victory, we are a developing team, and I’m sure as Hodgson further implements his own recruiting, we will start expanding our attack.

And none of us got wet stood on a western terrace either

Still had to listen to the god awful drummer though. I wish he'd advance from monotonous thumping.

The bit in bold is why people are asking questions as that is what is concerning that the reason we didn't have much ball particularly in the 2nd half was our own doing from poor discipline, giving set restarts regularly and not being able to complete a set. This is ok if its a one off but its becoming a bad habit and means we are putting more pressure and workload on our ourselves by doing an awful lot more defending than we should be.

As I've said I don't think anyone has been scathing or said anything that is over the top, most if not all have said that defensively credit is due but that the giving away of cheap ball will hurt us if that nettle is not grasped, even Griff said as much in his aftermatch interview on SKY.

If we had been a little bit more switched on and less eager to gift Leeds ball and territory in our half then we'd would likely have had a much more comfortable win.

To be honest I was very surprised they allowed the trumpet players bearing in mind social distancing and mask are still required.

At least the team have managed to escape the clutches of the disciplinary panel this week



Though I must admit that the following in regards to Prior using his head to butt Connor is laughable

Details of allegation: Head butting in 17th minute
Decision: NFA
Details of Charge /
Reason for NFA: Player is trying to extricate himself from the tackle. Opponent is keeping himself tight.

So any player now has 'carte blanche' to head butt an opposing player if they don't let go in the tackle

Discipline is going to haunt us unfortunately, with Connor and Reynolds we’ve got two of the most annoying players around.

But the line you’ve taken out and highlighted, was not referring to discipline, but probably Leeds ability to pin us back in the pack, due to Taylor and Bowden not being available, leaving us short on go forward all the second half.

Fashy does well when he’s on, but we struggle when Big Chris or Liggy go off. As I said I’ll take this win ugly or not.

I thought the whole arrangement was odd from what I could see on TV. Looked like whole sections of seating empty while people were stood very close in the standing areas. Very haphazard and certainly a lot less strict than what was in place at the KCOM last Monday.

Its not the ill discipline of Connor or Reynolds though but the ill discipline in the ruck partcularly and dumb stuff we are making a habit of which undermines a lot of the hard work they'd done.

Classic example of this was when we'd been coughing up the ball, continually giving set restarts within our 40 and 20 then when we get the ball back we make a good solid effort with a good kick from Sneyd to pin them back in their own 20 only to give a stupid penalty away and invite them back in to our 40 again. Then the more pressure we put on ourselves and the heavier workload to defend just multiplies the errors/penalties we give due to fatigue.
However at least we now have a cohesive team that work for one another where as before it would have resulted in capitulation.

It wasn't about Leeds having any ability to pin us in our own half as we are doing a better job of that than any of their forwards, had Leeds been a better side then we would have paid for the amount of ball and territory we gave them.

There is no doubt that missing Taylor and Bowden we lack real go forward when Satae and Sao go off which is why the non use of Brown is being questioned as he is a bright talent and has played well when given the opportunity.

Chris you know around the ruck, it’s a lottery who gets pinged, you’ve said yourself, head scratching to see what we do any differently to other teams. There’s no arguments from me regarding us being as squeaky clean as we can possibly be.

But in the rain and the wind, against a full strength Leeds, we did them, lacking Brown, Taylor, and Bowden. Result

But regarding Jack Brown, there must be something that’s causing his omission from the side. It’s funny since his agent was publicly saying how good he was, he’s not been seen. Well actually he was warming up with the players against the Cats

Indeed I have and it is a lottery but we were certainly pushing things and never heeded that we were getting stung by it, some of the errors even allowing for the the weather were just daft ones and giving unnecessary penalties away.

Don't get me wrong I am very pleased with the win and that even playing as poorly as we did overall we still dug in and ground out the win.

I thought he may possibly not be quite fit but them seeing him as you say in the pre game warm up kind of answered that. Maybe his attitude has been a little off since his agent talking in the press or maybe that his agent has offered him round has annoyed the club who knows but its strange.

We will play better and lose, I’m just glad the teams first footing is togetherness, it’s a transformation, and hopefully we will improve as the season progresses.