Although your opinions sometimes act as a useful counterbalance to some of the more negative opinions on here, you may have been better off on this occasion maintaining your silence and keeping what's left of your integrity in tact, as you managed so successfully yesterday.

Even those fans who are the most uncritical, who live, breath and worship the Rhinos... even they are mightily peed off with yesterday's performance rather than the result itself. These are fans who were magnificent last season, who turned up week in, week out, despite the shower of smelly brown stuff being served up and sprayed all over until Segeyaro arrived and cleaned the place up a bit.

The reaction by many to that performance yesterday indicates that the fanbase aren't going to be so forgiving or supportive of the same stinky stuff (or worse) being served up in 2017. They didn't like what they saw... a window pointing directly at 2017... and they certainly weren't expecting the smell to be worse than last season either.

Coming from a guy who constantly criticises the fan base for turning up and calling them sheep etc. then your faux concern is laughable.

You ridicule people for turning up during the season then offer fake sympathy for a pre season friendly. Sorry William I see through your fake concern for others as it's clearly BS just because those people are quite heavy on slating the club right now. The club start doing well again and your opionion on fans will alter again.

...and then he put a team of kids out.



I'm sure it was crap, it was always going to be though as we had 10 players out and more importantly............ the season doesn't start for 2 months!
It's why I spent the morning in bed, watching TV and eating cake.

How many of the players that turned out - can't say played - will be integral to next season - I would say the vast majority of the starting line up only Jordan-Roberts and Aston will not feature. Of the 13 it is likely at least 8 will be in the starting line up come round 1 in the subs Mullally, Walters and possibly Smith will be part of the squad. Not quite a team of kids eh?

If this is an indication of the depth of the squad then it suggests all is not well - but then a number on here have been suggesting that for a while.

Theres a difference between appearing for the team and being integral to the season.

I would say I would expect Watkins, Moon, Hall, McGuire, Parcell, Ward and JJB to all feature in the starting 13, with Ferres and Burrow on the bench. I make that 9 of the 17. Of the subs from yesterday i expect only Mullaley will feature regularly.

Yes they were crap, but it was half a team


Some have been suggesting it for about 7 years

Ward Purcell & Jjb aside given how ineffective inconsistent & pure sh*# last season the rest were it hardly instills confidence knowing what's gonna be added to yesterday either.
Looking at our best 17 as it stands we'll be lucky to get 5th/6th imo should we get 3/4 injuries we'll be lucky to get 8th.

Yes, Leeds were absolutely terrible yesterday... Clueless in attack. I don't think Sutcliffe and Lilley cut the mustard for me.

Only one GF in the last four years perhaps they have a point

I haven't seen the game so can't comment.Was there any new blood from either club that made a mark!

we will finish 5th/6th at best and will be lucky to avoid middle 8's in reality, anyone thinking better than that now is living in a fantasy world imo. the spine simply isn't good enough and the pack is too placid for me. There is no strength in depth to boot. could be another long season ahead.

Was very impressed with the following

Jordan Crowther - young lad from Wakey academy. Started at LF playing good minutes and looking strong with a few good touches and drives.

Batchelor - England academy player. - again see above. These are two very exciting young forwards who have big futures.

These were the pick of the young lads wakey fielded.

I liked the look of golding who was busy.

Be good to see fifita, hubby, miller, mason brown, Gibson added to the team we had out but was mostly pleased for our pack with a couple of young lads in with a handful of appearances in Sl getting the better of players like garbut, Delaney, singleton etc.

It is only a friendly but there was a massive lack of direction in the Leeds team. Was shocked at how clueless they were tbh.

Thanks for the input TH..

It was a lot worse than what you imagine.
I have never been so bored at a rugby match as I was in the second half, including all the other boxing day fixtures.

In 80 mins of RL Leeds only did 3 bits of skill worth watching (covering less than 1% of the game), Sutcliffe put in a boss kick, Golding and Lilly did some nice quick hands and made a half break, and Ormondroyd showed some strength to score.
These weren't really highlights, the Leeds team of 2015 would do maybe 50 bits of equal skill.

I went to watch it because I (like many of the nation) like watching some sport on boxing day, but if the Rhinos coach and players don't care then next year me and my family will try get tickets for the united game.

Always going to be difficult when the opposition play a near full strength side.

It's shame we didn't create more from distance but we got over their line plenty of times which was encouraging and showed we were making opportunities at least.

Overall hard to judge really with 9 first team players absent. It's virtually a different team.

True but not true, you see if Leeds want to be genuine contenders there will be times in a season when they will have nine out but be expected to win.

Also not every one of those missing players was a pivot player vital to the team.

Fact is friendly or not if it weren't for Trinity being a bit rusty themselves you were looking at a fifty point humiliation on your own middings - not acceptable under any circumstances against a mid table local rival!

BMs comments were pathetic and he's clearly out of his depth now he can no longer depend on the team other better coaches created. Personally I hope you stick with him.

i fear for our chances in the Lazenby Cup game next year, in what is undoubtably our biggest shot at silverware.

it is only following on from what was served up all 2016.Only Segeyaro could provide it and he is long gone.

Sadly this is so true!

LeedsDave, I know and accept that we put out a stronger team than Leeds, and no doubt that effected the result. But to suggest that we had a near full strength team is a bit of a stretch. We had a lot of youth in that team. Including 3 players under the the age of 21 that all played decent mins. Furthermore we missed some of our most important players the like of: huby, jowitt, fifita, MCB and some of our other, and in my opinion better, fringe played like annakin and Gibson.

I'm sure come the season the result will be closer, I hope it is as it will be more entertaining. It's a friendly and too much shouldn't be read into it. However a bit of acknowledgement to Wakefield instead of excuses about the team selection is deserved I feel

taking nothing away from Wakey, you should be fighting for super 8s. it looks tight at the minute, i see a top 5 who will be secure then the rest could be in any order really. And i include Leeds in that battle.

All of 2 players aged 21 or under in your starting 13, alongside 11 of your first 13 going by squad numbers. With one more youngster getting decent minutes of the bench.

Leeds had 4 players aged 21 or under just in their starting line-up, along with an extremely young and/or inexperienced bench.
Of our 1-13 squad numbers, we had only 4 in the starting line up.

Wakefield deserve credit for a decent performance, but lets not pretend Wakefield didnt have a stronger team out there.

If you read my last post you'll see that I openly acknowledged that Wakefield had a far more experienced team on the park than Leeds. However, I'm merely making the point that we didn't have a strong a team out as some people are making out. Judah Mazive, James batchelor, Jordan crowther and tom Johnstone are all 21 and under. So obviously we lack experience there despite how talented the youngsters are. Furthermore we had players e.g. Walker, who likely wouldn't even be first called up in times of injury. Someone touched on the squad numbers, I would suggest they mean very little as fifita (in my opinion our best forward) is in the high teens/ 20's
Leeds had the younger and more inexperienced team out. That's clear but Wakefield were no where near full strength.

Not really sure what else Chester could have done, he gave debuts to 5 new signings and played most of the youngsters in the squad. I suppose an argument could be made that playing Moules and Morris may have weakened Wakefield as they are not really tried at this level, but otherwise you are looking at Jowitt , Caton-Brown, Miller, Gibson, Huby and Fifita as the players to miss out, none of who would weaken the team in my opinion.

I like to get out on Boxing Day and supporting my team is fine. Can't remember last one we missed so always go as many have said not expecting a spectacle and win or lose is not important. As with the Lazenby Cup just a way of looking at what we coming through. What I do expect is effort and game management from someone, it seems we will be going in rudderless again and expecting DMg to turn things round. I have seen better co-ordinated school teams than we showed and no one gave their team prospects a boost. As for Brian macs outburst take it with a pinch of salt he will be worried because we do not really have anything different to show.

I have read all the feedback on here and agree with what most have said.
Golding and Singleton were probably the only reasonable performers out there.
Ormandroyd and Baldwinson had a couple of average attempts at busting the line and Aston for me seemed the only one trying to use his brain to get something out of the team.
As for Sutcliffe if he is our answer I really am not sure what the question is.
Maybe he suits the old style LF position but is inferior to Ward and we tend to use an extra prop there anyway.
Golding could be more suited to half back and Sutcliffe to FB where I thought he was starting to impress back end of last year.
Wakefield outplayed us in every position on the park and full credit to them.
At least they came with a plan.
We had 4 or 5 sets on their line and still had no idea how to get through.
Credit to Wakefierld`s defence or our inability to conjure anything up . I`m not sure.
Whilst we played a relatively under strength side you would have thought we would have some strucure to work on as the "reserves" should be playing the same structures as the first team do anyway or so I thought.
Yes it was a friendly and we should not read too much into the result.
But effort, skill sets and as mentioned previously structure should be there no matter when you play a game of sport. We had none of it whatsoever.
As for McDermotts comments well maybe 10,000 plus supporters should sign a petition asking for a refund.
The game was billed as a challenge match not a frigging training session.
Isn`t that a form of misrepresentation and as such breaches some sort of consumer code?
Maybe when only a handful of supporters turn up next BD the penny might drop.
We were not expecting a grand final type of game we were expecting a challenge between two teams but we all got to see Leeds in training mode or is that the first of our excuses.
My worry is if that is how we train with little idea and thought. We aint going to do very well next season.
Fingers crossed we get it sorted in time.