Thank you, Sir.
I'd imagine they have practised it a fair bit tbh, bit different to the real thing though isn't it. I went to the first CC final there, Saints/Cats. It was a sunny day without much wind as I remember.

Dixon
Mantellato
Welham
Salter
Sio
Blair
Kelly
Puletua
Lunt
Allgood
Donaldson
Horne
McCarthy

Boudebza
Burke
Green
Walker

That's my team for the famous victory!

Okay Bob, we'll see. But this plan is not at all easy to execute against a brilliant kicker. As someone further up has said if Mantellato is involved in the previous tackle, your entire system is knackered. I fear Leeds tactical planning may be slightly better than Leigh and Halifax's and dare I say it, even yours, astute observer though you are.

I think we need to smash them up the middle with high intensity destroy their forwards and in the process we will be protecting Dixon anyway. I think the final will be decided on which team turns up with the most belief and the right attitude, there is no room for nerves and no room for errors unlike Sunday against Halifax.

You do realise this is Rovers we are talking about don't you?

Welcome to the board by the way. What's your beef with Kev Larroyer?

Actually, it's called a "renash". Saw it on Call My Bluff.

Good Lord! I think we're being a bit harsh on our full backs. So if Leeds take The Man Tomato out of the equation and kick to our fullback, that's what the fullback is there for. If we're so scared of either of them facing a high ball they shouldn't even be our full backs.

I like them both as players but I'd say they're both below average at defusing bombs, wouldn't you?

Maybe, but the fact remains that they are our full backs. You can't form a game plan around ensuring that your full back never has to defuse a bomb. It's like putting a prop out there and trying to make sure nobody big ever runs at him.

A shock could be Blair at right centre.

Trying to play them up the middle is a sure fire way of losing, our strength is playing out wide, as long as its not reckless its our only chance

Because he kicked off with that young kid against Halifax then when the lad retaliated he did a brown onion in his shorts.
But more seriously I just don't think his form has been good of late although I will say he a decent first half against Warrington. The philosophy all year seems to have been to pick players on form so why change it now it's not like Leeds are a tough team to beat anyway!

Agree and Disagree. But if you look at the last 2 challenge cup games the forwards dominated the ruck and I think if we don't control or at least match Leeds up the middle they will trample us up the middle with arguably the best pack in the competition. With maybe the exception of Hudds they probably have the best sliding defence too so although wel no doubt attack out wide it may not be the smartest move when we have one of the best strike players in Albert Kelly who can create something out of nothing.

That was the point that I was making, His Bobness made the claim that Mantellato could just sweep through the middle and deal with any kicks targeted at the full back.

Larroyer has been one of our top tacklers all season

I don't get why people have an issue with Larroyer. I don't do stats, but over the last couple of months I think along with Donno he has been one our most consistent players both in attack and defence, and has been one of the most aggressive forwards.
As for backing off from the Halifax player, I don't blame him, a couple of matches ban for punching was the last thing we wanted and that fracas needed defusing as quickly as possible.

Stats mean jack for all we know 3/4 of his tackles could be 3rd man in so realistically they mean nothing. But there are a few players who have more tackles than Larroyer and played less games. I just think he's gone missing of late and doesn't offer much going forward.

That was only a joke BTW! But I definitely saw a brown onion pop out.

No just pointing out that in our last few games including the cup semi our full back hasn't had to take a single high kick Mantellato & Sio have dealt with the lot.

I accept that we haven't faced a kicker of Sinfield's quality but I don't think Dixon is going to have to take too many high kicks and if he does have to deal with the odd one he probably catches about 2 out of 3. For me it is not a good percentage play for Leeds to spend too much time targeting Dixon with high kicks down the middle which are probably going to be dealt with by someone else,when they have so many other quality last play options. It'll probably be a good sign if they are reduced to that.

We all see things a bit differently but personally I'd be more worried about Dixon's catching ability if he was on the wing. It would be easier to isolate him with those accurate Sinfield crossfield kicks to the corner and it would be Dixon vs Ryan Hall out there. Really that is what Hull did at the magic weekend, kick to the corner big man vs little man, almost undefendable. I said after that game Dixon must now be regarded as a full back his weaknesses are more exposed as a winger.

I agree that it's unlikely Leeds will put up too many high bombs direct to our fb, unless it's Danny Maguire or Rob Burrow doing the kicking on the last play around half way.

Kevin Sinfield is much more of a tactical positional and territorial kicker. He also kicks brilliantly into the in goal area from short distance or puts decent and accurate shorter high balls up for his outside backs to compete for near the corners.

Leeds also run more power plays on the final tackle than most other teams in SL.

We can't control what Leeds do, they look pretty strong all over the park and have few weaknesses. Our strength has been the ability to score tries, especially from cross field kicks. Briscoe has bags of ability but he can be dodgy on these and under pressure has a tendency to wilt. We need to target him with these and get JM running onto these.

It always baffles me that we don't use that kick as much as we should because it causes teams all sorts of problems.

I don't read to much into stats but watching larroyer he does a lot of tackling and not 3rd or 4th man and he's got the aggression some of our players lack

Mantallato caught everything in the semi because for some reason Warrington kicked to him every time not because he was covering for Dixon

Good point.

In the opening game of this season against Leeds, we got a lot of joy out of kicks to the corner and kicks to the in-goal in behind their defence. The Pies got a couple of their tries last week against Leeds with kicks to the in goal against Watkins and Briscoe. If we decide on kicks into the in-goal, I hope we avoid the sort that Chisholm produced against Saints in the last regular season SL game.

Briscoe is dodgy around his own try line under any sort of pressure.

When I saw us play Leeds at Headingley, we scored on the flanks for fun in the first half. Dixon skinned Ryan Hall twice. He has a tendency to come in early to shut down the play when the fullback joins the line. If Ken Sio holds his line out wide, it could be quite productive until they make the necessary adjustment, which they often seem to do.

Their biggest advantage over us is they have forwards who can offload at will, break the line with supported runs or short passes. Also Rob Burrow is a legend. Then mayhem.

The 'some reason' was Rovers aggressive midfield defence and line speed forcing Wire to hurriedly put in nothing kicks spraying anywhere and everywhere.

Or maybe Wire just thought it was a good idea to kick to Mantellato & Sio instead of Dixon, seems unlikely surely?