Did you think so? I thought we struggled in this area to be honest. Wire made far too many meters out of DH, and we struggled to slow down their PTB.

I thought so too. Their hookers were far more effective than ours although not many sides are stronger in this department than Wire. And while we didn't slow down their PTB as much as we might have, neither did we give away numerous penalties the way sides often do when trying to compensate for being on the back foot in the ruck area.

And it is not the first time Monaghan against Hall this same error has happened.

Is that sides like Leeds also?

Expect to see that aspect return to the Leeds norm once Jones-Buchanan gets himself fit.

Very much so. Slowing down the PTB isn't something we do terribly well, along with many other sides. It'd be nice if JJB didn't induce quite so many head-in-hands moments but, like you, I'm sceptical that he can/will change that aspect to his game.

A couple of thoughts:

1. We got murdered down the middle early on. Kylie simply should not be starting, he can do 15-20 minute stints at most. Singleton needs to start ahead of him.

That said, for a good part of the first half Burrow wasn't bringing the forwards onto the ball with any pace whatsoever. Compare to Chris Hill & Higham. Hill was always at full tilt when he received the ball.

2. Burrow shouldn't start at hooker. Distribution from dummy half was poor, as above failed to bring the forwards onto the ball with pace, and can't defend as well as Aiton can. As soon as Aiton came on the defence tightened up and we started making more meters.

I can understand the strategy of wanting Aiton fresh enough to be there to close out games, but against better teams than Wire we'll ship more early on with Burrow there, and we lose his attacking ability against tired defences.

3. Stevie Ward needs to start. Immediately brought more to the game than Clarkson, offloading & passing is better, makes more meters and can tackle better.

TEAM FOR CATALANS:

1. Zak Hardaker
20. Tom Briscoe
3. Kallum Watkins
4. Joel Moon
5. Ryan Hall
21. Liam Sutcliffe
6. Danny McGuire
23. Brad Singleton
9. Paul Aiton
10. Jamie Peacock
15. Brett Delaney
12. Carl Ablett
14. Stevie Ward

7. Rob Burrow
8. Kylie Leuluai
16. Ryan Bailey
19. Mitch Achurch

I agree with you and think we are in a good position so far. Competition for places and plenty of room for improvement is where the coaches will be happy to be at this stage.

Superleague have JP making 54 tackles, Delaney with 42, Ablett 38, Aiton 35, Sinfield 33 and Bailey 31 in a team total of 366 tackles. So others are doing their share too

Spot on ...with ALL you state.....

But you can also bet your bottom dollar McDermott and his best buddies player power will still dictate the team and who starts.

To an extent yes. Leeds were slow out of the blocks in the first 15 mins. But once we got a bit of momentum we kept it controlled up until the last 10 mins, but that was more to do with the amount of defending we had to do in the 2nd half. With the quality Wire have got in that department we did exceptionally well.

Other than one brief mention earlier in the thread I don't think anybody has said what an effect the conditions had on the game.
We had to do so much defending in the second half due to the strength of the wind & rain in our faces.
That made it very difficult - in the absence of relief from penalties - to gain ground through kicks on the fifth tackle.
I also believe that the wind played a major factor in Hall failing to offer more of a challenge to Monaghan when he scored.
I was surprised in view of the weather conditions that neither side made more attempts at 40 - 20 kicks when attacking the Cranegie stand end.
Our defence was excellent apart from the two tries. For Westwood's try I felt that Ablett switched off thinking the other 3 would halt Westwood. He was more worried about getting into position to defend the next PTB. Credit to Westwood for not giving up.
I'll be quite happy to see games as close as that - with a similar result - throughout the remainder of the season.
Sadly there are a number of sides that I fear will provide much weaker defensive resolve than the Wolves.

And so the other three should have and had Aiton not released Westwood's legs before the tackle was completed perhaps they would have.

Been out of the country so only just watched the game. After reading bits of this thread I was expecting Leeds to have been total gash and Warrington slightly worse. I was also expecting to see Kylie and McGuire to be utterly dreadful - setting a new low. Anyway, I think I must have recorded the wrong game, if anyone has a version that resembles the one I was expecting can you make me a copy?

The game I recorded (which obviously was the wrong one), was a good early season encounter between a Warrington side stung into action defensively after their poor showing last week and confident and organised looking Leeds team. I guess not everything came off for both teams but the high wind, cold and then wet didn't seem to hinder some good movement met by solid defence from both sides. The ref even had a good one.
I really enjoyed it. Kylie looked perfectly fine and McGuire looked dangerous - I actually thought he looked sharp and did a lot of good defending.

I have just rewatched the game on my version

Perhaps I should lend you my copy.

1ST HALF: Handled the ball a total of 30 times.

2 Kicks Out Of Hand ( 1 Short Attacking Kick In Goal)
10 Standing Passes From 1st Receiver
12 Standing Passes From 2nd Receiver
2 Passes From Acting Half
4 Handling Errors

2ND HALF: Handled the ball a total of 26 times

5 Kicks Out of Hand *Sinfield Off Injured* (1 Short Kick Gained 6 More)
2 Standing Passes From 1st Receiver
9 Standing Passes From 2nd Receiver
2 Passes From Acting Half
2 Runs From Acting Half
1 Return Kick Run
3 Tackled In Possession
2 Handling Errors

McGuire`s involvent was very limited on attack and far from dangerous. I dont recall a single attacking run of more than 2-3m most of his involvment was from standing wide passes or drop offs back inside.

and in defense he was offering assists only ie second man in most of the time.

I dont recall him breaking their line once or assisting in any other positive outcomes, apart from the one short kick in the second half, which is far outweighted by the 6 handling errors 2 of which were clear scoring chances for the wingers but they both sailed way overhead into touch IIRC.

Far too many doom merchants on here recently. If posters aren't putting down the recent performance (which I thought was fine, A very good win). They are arguing among themselves about who has the most accurate stats or who can predict the next performance the best.


There again this is an internet forum, knock yourselves out boys and girls...................but it is only the third week of the season FFS

I think a debate about McGuire`s involvement is a legitimate topic.



Its far from doom and gloom its about our transistion at the vital pivot roles.

We have the back line sorted and IMHO the pack can with the additions sustain its value for this season.

Burrow has other assetts and skills to contribute.

Sinfield barring injuries is set at stand off it would seem again this year.

That leaves McGuire attempting to retain a shirt when facing competition from the youngsters which are up and coming.

I doubt he broke a sweat on Friday night never mind a tackle. Even 2 Sky commentators mention the poor level of his contributions.

I'm not sure that strengthens your argument.

I thought he had a poor game on Friday night, and those questioning if they watched the same game, no you didn't and it's about time you started watching properly.

However, I disagree with you on the comment about "doubt he broke sweat". The guy tried everything, worked his butt off, and was so close on many occasions. The problem is nothing worked for him. Everything he did seemed to go wrong. Hence why he had a poor game. But this is a game of inches, and that quite easily could have being the other way round.

They were watching the same game i think

If it were me, based on the Wire game, I'd start Aiton and bring Burrow off the bench to run at tiring forwards. We had better structure and our ruck in both attack and defence was better with Aiton on the field. He didn't do anything very flash, just did the job of a dummy half and made better decisions.

I'd be tempted to keep Clarkson starting and bring Ward on later, for similar reasons. I think Ward's well capable of doing the grunt work in the opening exchanges, but I'd rather he didn't. He looks like he is going to be a very good defender, but I'm more interested in what he can do with ball in hand with space. I'd like to see him start a few games at 6 or 13 too as the seaspn goes on. But given how long he was out for, bringing him off the bench for a few weeks (provided he gets enough game time) seems a good way for him to play his way back into form.

But then I'm not the coach. Which is probably a good thing really.

Watched the game again very carefully and I cant agree.

Most of his involvment with the ball was in the middle third of the park and where simple straight passes to a runner outside who drove the ball in.

His 2 potential real attacking involvements were both wide miss out passes to men in positions to score they both sailed into touch.

We succeded because our pack stood up to theirs generally, which denied their pivots any meaningful possessions and our goal line defence was immense apart form a single lapse with 4 minutes left to play, and of course our back line scored 3 tries.

McGuire is a legend in the game the SL Top Try Scorer over the past 10 years but his pace has now gone and sadly he does not have a wider skill set which would allow him to revert to another useful position a la Schofield or Hanley IMHO of course.

This seems fair to me. He didn't attack the line much, what he was doing was trying (as I alluded to above) to get the ball moving quickly, into space and into the hands of our big attacking threats on the fringes, or bringing forwards onto the ball on good angles. Which is what a halfback in this Leeds team should be doing IMO.

His timing was off, but to be honest we know he has more than enough ability to do that job, so I'm not overly worried.

On one pass behind Briscoe I thought he was entitled to expect Briscoe to be there, but some of that is down to getting new partnerships working.

Danny McGuire is a very talented and very experienced player. If he keeps trying to play in the way he was trying to on Friday he'll have a lot more good days than bad ones.

Yes a very experience player but with a single facet to his game which sadly has deserted him.

This is clearly obvious to all with eyes to see.

Its is a huge dissapointment that he cant make a transition to the traditional role usually taken by a senior stand off such as the loose forward wide running ball handling type.

IMHO he never has had a good kicking game or a really good miss out pass skill so that leaves him simply handing the ball on from 1st or 2nd receiver in the middle of the park. Watch the game again and see this for a fact.

Fair enough we can tolerate that atm but I am taking a long view here.

As alluded to earlier, I don't think you can ever really fault McGuire's effort. Whether good, bad or indifferent he is always very involved and doesn't go missing in games like some halves can do at times.

I would maybe stick with Clarkson to start (along with Aiton). As we saw on Friday we improve as the first half goes on so I'd rather see Burrow and Ward come on when we're gaining momentum compared to the other two.

I also noticed how we were moving the ball wide when the 1st kicker was getting closed down. Preferably a better and quicker PTB (and sometimes smarter choice of who takes the previous drive in) would help the 1st choice kicker (usually Sinfield) get his effort away, however it is good to see him passing it if he is getting closed down.....last years WCC we struggled because he tried taking every kick even when closed down so didn't execute very well.

Regarding that pass you mentioned I didn't think the pass was that great I think yes briscoe over ran it but even if he hadn't it would have been down by his laces.

I'm in full agreement with this. Drawing attention to his drop off in pace for me displays a gross misunderstanding of his role in the team. A bit like the poster on this thread who criticised Sinfield for a lack of pace. Let's face it, McGuire's loss of pace has been apparent for the last four or five seasons plus. If pace was that essential to his game he'd be gone.

What the coaching staff are clearly hoping for is a return to the form McGuire showed in 2010 - when IMO he was crucial to making Leeds tick as a play-maker. In that season he was responsible for creating a lot of tries for other players - through his passing and kicking games. Unfortunately it all ended with the 'Rugby gods' incident, a major reason IMO why we failed in the play-offs that season. Since then he's struggled to find a consistent place in the team through recurrent injury and his form has been pretty erratic. If he can stay injury free for a reasonable period, there's no reason why he can't get back into form. Half backs go in and out of form at the best of times. Obviously no-one should have a right to a place irrespective of form but I don't think it's time to drop him just yet on the basis of a one-off display.