i thought burrow was poor on friday. his passing from AHB was sloppy and slow. i think he has a role to play but it's not from hooker.
i thought aiton looked ok and he'll only get better

Will be re watching the game tonight but my initial reaction at the game on Friday was DM was poor.

That was a game won by your outside backs, generally all though entertaining I thought it was a poor quality game all round, Wires inability to score was down to not having a loving clue in your 10 as much as it was your defence, like someone touched on, Briers plays and I think we'd have won, deserved or not.
GOB I can forgive, he rarely starts but Myler couldn't unlock his front door.
Atkins stank to high heaven and it was no surprise everything went down our left side when you attacked.
Looking at this as if I was a Leeds fan, I'd be happy that we won but I'd be thinking god the opposition were poor regardless of recent years, we were lucky that they were too.

In the end two guys won you that game a fullback and a winger and when you're relying on those positions to win you games cos no else shows up you need to analyse it a bit more.

after one pre season game and one SL game i certainly wouldn't expect leeds to be anywhere near there best. but 4 points from 4 is a great start.
be an interesting season for most clubs as you have no idea what they are going to do this year

That someone would label Warrington's attack impotent and easy to repel clearly shows someone does have an agenda. Granted they've lost a key part in Briers but they still have quality, they still have a coach who is renowned for having his team score lots of points and in the last 12 years only 5 times has a team scored more than a thousand points in a season (Smith was coach of 3 of those).

Funny how you go on about Wire not being as good and the lack of quality from the Wakey and Bradford match and that these things are showing how the standards are dropping in the league.......but then say wait until we face Saints, Hudds, Wigan. I imagine Salford will be harder to repel than in 2012.

And maybe you're right, maybe we should've been easily capable of repelling Wire's attack, but then again we should've been easily capable of repelling the attacks of other teams in the previous years that we made look like hard work.

In 2011 & 2012 we kept other Top 8 teams to 12 points or less in a match only 3 times in 2 years during the regular season. Last year we achieved it on 6 occasions, 2 times already this year. Maybe you should try and look at some of the games from those first two McDermott years. The Wigan 50 point beating, the red hair at Saints game, conceding 36 at home to Quins, the 38 points Wakey put past us on a Monday night Sky game.

You'll just say "league standards are dropping" yet come up with nothing more than Lee Briers retirement and a bottom of the table clash between Wakey and Bradford, that is not conclusive for me. I don't have an agenda, I had a view that the defence was really good on Friday. That you felt the need to run in and attribute that to Warrington being poor does speak volumes.

We were/are at the moment.

I said last season that it was time mcguire was fazed out and i've not changed that view.

In years to come, when we end up losing mcguire, burrow AND sinfield all at the same time, i'll have been proven right.

Even Stevie Wonder can see the league's inability to attract quality NRL players such as Danny Buderus combined with the exodus of a few top English players such as Burgess and Tomkins has to weaken the quality of the league. The fact that you cannot see this shows your blinkered agenda for what it is.

Are you seriously suggesting Warrington without Briers are a more potent attacking team than with him? You are not comparing like for like.

How many points did Wakey score against us in 2013?

Think a lot of the comments on here have come down on the overly negative side of 'balanced critique'.

At the end of the day, Leeds took the two points from an entertaining game that was contested until the last minute against decent opposition. We showed some bloody impressive defence, and Briscoe scored an absolute peach of a wonder-try. I honestly don't think we can ask for more at this stage of the season. A perfect display at this stage would have all and sundry telling us we've peaked too soon, and rightly so.

I'm not so worried about the negatives, that is for the coaching staff. Nothing that can't be fixed. McGuire had an off-game but it wasn't for lack of trying - on a different occasion he could have easily been MoM if he'd brought slightly better execution.

As for the pack, I would have thought it unlikely that JP will have to make 60 tackles again this season. With the likes of Kirke, JJB and Achurch missing I'm sure the burden of work can be more easily spread in the future. I gather that Leeds were playing into strong wind and rain in the second half, which probably played a big part in Wire making big metres up the middle.

Is it me or are all the threads on here pretty much the same debate featuring the same 4 or 5 people by the time you get to about page 3?

I thought we were a bit scratchy on Friday, but generally defended quite well (albeit Wire didn't test us as much as they might have). I thought Wire were a level or two up from the previous week, but I also thought we should have put them away well before the "grandstand finish" was set up.

It's no more and no less than 2 points against a team who will probably still end up somewhere in the top 5 or 6. Plenty to work on, but on the other hand, the performance of our backline in general, and Hardaker, Watkins and Briscoe in particular is something to be excited about. Sometimes the combinations were still a bit off, but individually they were all very good. Briscoe's try was a joy to see. Angle: check. Timing: check. Speed: check. Swerve and step: check. Power: check. All bases covered. Terrific stuff.

Yes I can see that the quality coming over here has reduced......but as you point out, we don't have Danny Buderus or Ali Lauitiiti ourselves anymore. It's hit us hard too, do you think we'd have the likes Aiton or Achurch if the door to the better NRL talent was open? It has led to us facing attackers who might not be as good, but it's prevented us from signing better players too.



No I haven't come anywhere near suggesting that, you're clearly reading things I put very incorrectly. It's been you though that has pretty much labelled a Wire team clueless and rubbish in attack because for the sole reason that Leeds kept them down to 12.



18 and 24 for a total of 42

Not just him that labelled Wire impotent, pretty much all the Wire fans think that too.

Sums up pretty much every thread

Sorry about that, I dared to say the defence had improved since 2011/2012.

Just one big bitch-fest on here for pretty much the foreseeable future.

People having their own warped views can't be helped

.

But surely, that is still better than everyone having the same view?

Think Leeds got a bit comfortable. Wire didn't really offer a threat apart from the mismatch for the kick when Hall was out jumped Wire looked a little pedestrian and we contained them ok. When Leeds were 18-6 up if they'd taken a couple of more opportunities they'd have been pushing the 30 total and the game would have been locked up. But then after the missed drop goal and inexcusable defending for the Westwood try(which in fairness was great determination by Westwood to keep driving to the line, but someone should have wrapped him and the ball carrying arm up)....it all got a bit twitchy.

Out jumped would suggest, one jumping higher than the other. Not one staying flat footed and moving aside for the other to catch and fall.

Enough players around to snuff out the Westwood try - one of them was Stevie Ward who I bet won't be doing that again. Learning curve (not that he was the only culprit by any stretch).

I actually thought some of our attacking structures looked quite promising. We got the ball into the hands of the backline in some good areas. A few things were a bit rusty in the execution, which will come in time. I also thought Wire, for their faults were very committed in defence. If the game had finished 36-6 it wouldn't have been a bad reflection of what happened IMO.

Simple error of judgement - over-estimated the weight on the kick, under-estimated Monaghan's leap. I would imagine nobody was more disappointed with it than Hall himself.

Good leap and reactions with the fingers from Monaghan - bit more than "catch and fall" to be fair.

I think you are being far too defensive of Hall there. It was a childish mistake that you see in kids games, not Super League.

Your point would have being correct had Hall actually moved his feet to jump, who cares then if he misjudged. What he did do however, was completely different.

Second game of the season.
Never looked like losing.
Plenty of breaks by the back line.
Forwards controlling the ruck.
Stevie Ward making a fine comeback.
Goal line defence looking superb.
Aiton looking like a fine addition adding quality out of dummy half
Briscoe proving he adds an immense amount to the squad.

Yes bombed a few chances and could have been more clinical, but all the above leaves me delighted.

Edit: Oh and Hardaker looking like he can take on the line and produce a decent ball this year.

It's too early in the season to judge any team, probably six matches in will give us a true assessment of any teams form.
At the moment I am more than happy with our performance so far, especially Hardaker and Briscoe.
I would be extremely disapointed if at the end of the season we don't end up with some silver ware. The challenge cup would fit the bill for me.

He clearly thought the ball was going to go over Monaghan's head. That being the case, he wouldn't have needed to jump. He was moving his hands into position to catch the ball. It never arrived. Poor error, but still an error. It wasn't (IMO) a decision not to challenge for the ball, it was a miscalculation of where the ball was going to be.

First game for some time for Ward, so if anyone can be let off for ring rust....

Yeah we promoted the ball to the right areas, our obvious danger areas out wide.

Wire stuck in the game when they weren't really in it.

As for Leeds, in opening 2 games, on last tackle plays Leeds are electing it to go the 2nd receiver then kick. Buys the kicker more time and space and we are getting a better end result from it. Wonder if that's Barry Eaton's influence? As I know he has been doing some training sessions and some specific kicking sessions. Also Moon has got a fair boot on him, not a bad option to drag the Power play left and if nothing looks on he can put a decent kick in rather than a last ditch kick in hope.