Utter tripe from someone who must have been watching the game through the bottom of a pint pot.

I think you are being hard on the lad. I am not certain at this stage if he will make the grade or not. As the game progressed I thought he improved. So he does not warrant your criticism. One or two senior players were off form so that did not help matters.

Totally agree with this.

Golding's problem is that no amount of great play can make up for bad hair. It's a fanbase-killer.

grew in confidence as it went on, had a decent game.

I think there's more to this than you jokingley suggest. For some reason I myself don't like players with long hair. I unintelligibly decide a player must be rubbish just based on their inexcusable choice of hairstyle.
I decide Gene Ormsby was going to be useless before I'd seen him take to the field, and my pre-conceived judgement proved correct. Ashton Simms is just a bafoon.

Morrissey once said that long hair on a man is an unpardonable offence, which should be punished by death. I wouldn't go this far but I understand the sentiment.

Getting back to Golding, well I'll never, ever write off a young player who plays in SL before they are physically ready. Coming off second best, not being able to physically impose yourself is going to happen frequently. He looked to grow in confidence as the game went on and became more involved in the attack. If he had more upper body strength giving the opportunities to fend then he could have looked more dangerous. He maybe turn out to be a couple of inches undersized to make it at FB but there's no way I'd write him off yet.

Have a word with yourself. He looked no worse than most of his senior pros last night and grew in confidence.

He clearly isn't up to hardakers standard but as a young kid starting out he showed pace and courage. Only time will tell if he will make it but throwing him under the bus after a couple of games is crazy.

I thought he did absolutely fine, then again what do I know .I've only been watching Leeds since they had Bev Risman as their full back

spot on. some pathetic idiots on here, as per usual

Liability my @rse, he put his body on the line and got a clout from roby for doing so, he nearly scored from an amazing run what more do you want from a 17/18 year old?

Saints bossed us and even made sinfield stare in disbelief after being sold one two many dummies are we going to say he's rubbish too?

At the end of the day we've had a tough run of games and been to Wembley saints were fresher and and looked hungry and their kicking game was spot on. Like someone previously said if the kicks good (and most of saints were spot on) your going to have a tough time in defence whoever you are.

One more thing did anyone not here the praise the commentators were giving Golding on what a future prospect he could be????

Idiot, not idiots. There's only one person who has written him off. IIRC, he also did the same after the Warrington away game.

Golding is not good enough at this level. He offered nothing in attack, and looks relieved to just catch the ball in defence. If Zak gets injured we have no decent cover there.

Just out of curiosity what, other than yardage from kick returns, do you think Zak offers in attack comparatively?

Not about Goulding, as you wouldn't expect that of him, but if you watch Zak this year he is managing the attacking line and calling out moves. Not to mention his passing, which people still seem blind to see.

I see that. I'm really just trying to defend Golding as I don't think he did anything wrong in attack.

Why would anyone expect a youngster, who was just 19 on the match day, be every bit as good as a seasoned player who is currently at the top of his game? Golding has very little SL experience and that was in matches where the team were out of form or disrupted by injuries. He has just recovered from a long term back injury and once more is parachuted into a patched up and below form squad missing 6 senior players to play against the rested and revived Champions. I mean really whats going on?

Golding made a shaky start but so did did whole team. However he showed his mettle and went on to be one of the best performers IMO especially considering he was given a severe test by the Saints. He made several important tackles, in general got himself in good positions and mopped up a lot of stuff on our line safely, he backed up well, nearly scored a try and with Watkins like bit of footwork got us in the position for Achurch's score.

To set the record straight he made 15 tackles with no misses, he made 5 tackle busts (2nd best in team) and 1 clean break from 16 carries all of which are the equal of, or better than Hardaker's averages and Zak is currently justifiably considered the best full back in SL.

It's threads like this where you have to remind yourself that not everyone exists on the internet like this Bellend. He's 18 FFS you **** and add to that was far from the worst player on the pitch.

One thing that I noticed (and was commented on with frustration by people around me) was his tendency to stop when he had caught the ball on kick returns. He would run until their pack closed in on him and then stop and almost prepare for the impact rather than continuing to make progress forward. The other thing was he definitely ambled a bit for kick returns to the empty places on the pitch - he didn't look like he was busting himself to get there (like Zak does) and consequently Golding either was quickly set up on when he did get to the ball or was in the general area he needed to be but not totally set to catch it and thus caught it either slightly awkwardly or after it had bounced.

The bit where the saints k/o went straight out seemed similar - AG should have busted himself to be set in the right position to take that, but was not proactive enough to do so and failed.

Someone else should have also quickly taken charge of it and their failing to do so was down to them individually. Part of Hall / Cuthbo / Garbutt failing to take charge of it was (I have no doubt) because had Zak been there he would have been more proactive and got himself in the right place to catch it, therefore preventing the balls-up which followed.

He did get better as the game went on though, I agree with that. For me, on that performance I think to write him off is harsh though conversely to say he was good is over-the-top the other way. As with the majority last night, overall it was a bit of a non-performance; a '5 out of 10'er if this was a newspaper report...

There was any amount of things wrong with last night's performance but I'd need to read pretty far down the list before I got to Golding's performance. However, if I was to go through a list of candidates for most ridiculous post of the year I wouldn't have to read many before I found the opening one of this thread.

Pin it up with the 'mcdermott go' thread. Can't remember how that one turned out. A large section of sports fans are morons, seems to go with the territory.

You might want to watch what precedes Achurch's try. Then again, even if you did I'm not sure you'd have the ability to understand what you're watching.

As others have said, he grew in confidence as the game went on and had a reasonable game. His positioning at the back wasn't great but as he's just turned 19 and has a handful of games there that will come.

Golding will be at Leeds for year's to come. It's "fans" like World's Apart that should f**k off to some other club, not talented you lads like Golding.

People who expect an 18 year old kid to be a superstar. Clueless.

No errors, or missed tackles according to the stats.

More tackles, more metres, more tackle breaks and as many clean breaks as Quinlan too. Given Quinlan has played 25 NRL matches and maybe 10 Super League matches, Golding compares pretty well.