I'm glad someone else noticed Keinhorst's defensive efforts. I brushed briefly on it last week when I thought he was equally as poor but his tries papered over that.

Burrow scored a nice individual effort early on and threw a beautiful long pass to Sutcliffe and looked lively. I'd feel more confident about him if he passed like that on a more regular basis though



I called McShane in the ground and thought he was very good tonight. He controlled the pace of the game and it's no coincidence that we are getting more ball out wide now. It's mostly to do with having a good dummy half there who can feed the halfs much quicker.

I have seen a lot of slating of Hardaker on other forums tonight but I just dont get it. Hanbury did well for his try, but what about the one on one tackle in the 1st half where he attempted to go around Hardaker at full speed but Zak had none of it? He was very good bringing the ball back too.

I just love how Singleton runs the ball in. He plays like every play is his last. He runs at 100mph (not literally) and as he gets more used to his role in the First Grade will improve. I can see him scoring a few tries for Leeds over the coming years.

Singleton has been really impressive.He is making yards every time he takes a drive and he looks to be in great physical condition.When he fills out a bit more he will be really hard to handle the speed he hits the line.

I was impressed by Jordan Baldy as well, put himself about in defence and made plenty of metres after contact in attack

he did well with the limited time he was given.would like to see more of him for sure.Hope the coach feels he is worthy of some more game time in the coming weeks as we get more players back.

Singleton reminds me of a young Mark Carroll who i played alongside at Penrith back in the late 80's, similar rangy build and plays the game at full throttle.

Amazing what difference a hooker at hooker makes. Its even more basic than controlling the tempo - the halfbacks need consistently accurate quick ball.

Hope to see more?

That should be an absolute given if this coach even has one brain cell.

I have usually stayed away from the Kirke bashing, but last night with youngsters all around him, he was put to absolute shame. A really poor performance from Kirke, whilst Singleton and Baldwinson really proved a point.

Agree with all this.

Surprised you held back on Kirke though. Him and Keinhorst were way behind every other Leeds player in performance.

Very proud to have been fortunate to have coached 3 of the first team last night with a few more in the 19s I'm looking forward to seeing. Liam will learn from his misreads in defence I'm sure, and with the ball in hand looked more confident. Jordan and Tom ran hard when the opportunity
came and defensively very solid.

Like I said Widnes.........

I think the only person to hit the nail on the head is Brisbane, getting the headless chicken away from 9 and back to 7 where he does less momentum damage is good news.

It's just a shame that the idiot of a Coach has had his hand forced by injuries.

Singleton is some find by the way, a real prospect.

I thought all the young British lads were head & shoulders above Kirke. McShane grew as the game went on, wouldn't have been surprised if he had got MoM.

Give it a rest - surprised you were allowed to stay up posting on a school night

Yes. First 20 minutes or so in particular, having quick passes out to a wide Burrow at first receiver caused real problems. The miss pass McShane threw to Moore in the second half (which should have resulted in a try) was an absolute cracker.

He was MoM! I thought he was awesome, controlling the pace, kicking, his passing from PTB. I had him nailed on for a try the way he was going (and thought the one he had chalked off was unfair). I reckon he's grown from game to game since he's had a run as starting 9, he looks more and more confident with every minute.

Hardaker was awesome too, saved us 3/4 clear tries, he does look a little lost in attack at times though.

Baldwinson looks like he'll be a top quality player. Solid debut.

Some glaring defensive mistakes (Keinhorst, Kirke), but strong showing from most of the team, Hall, Moon, Singleton, Sutcliffe, and it was great to see BJB back, scoring, and running the whole length of the field at full pace again.

The proof of the pudding regarding McShane is all too plain to see, he's way better at 9 than Burrow has been, with quick accurate ball and an eye for when the scoot is on ... and gives the advantage of freeing Burrow up to do what he does so well.
I noticed McShane gaining metres by running at the offside man a couple of times last night, I can't recall having seen Burrow spot the opportunity to do that.

Widnes's tries last night were mostly gift-wrapped, courtesy of Leeds's defensive lapses ... and there were plenty of those, goodness knows how we'll go against a decent team like Huddersfield.

Defence apart, I have no great criticism of any of the youngsters last night, on the whole an encouraging display from them, especially Singleton again.

Bentham was poor, especially in the length of time he allowed Widnes to lay-on ... men were on the ground so long you might have thought you were watching Union at times.

Another game where the opposition have found easy ways to cut our defence to ribbons. Given that our last two games have been Cas and Widnes, I am very worried about what Huddersfield and Warrington will do in the coming weeks.

I thought Sutcliffe was fantastic, very calm and composed for his age, good speed and strength and he certainly likes to get the ball moving wide.

If he plays like that every week it would be hard to leave him out of the team.

Keinhorst on the other hand was very poor, spent most of the game watching the big screen, lots to work on for him.

Thought Moon had his best game for a few weeks, didn't look injured in the slightest.

Really enjoyable match last night. Sutcliffe, Singleton and McShane's old school kicking are a happy prospect. I also fear the Huddersfield match could be a whole different outcome.

For me it's not the actual tackling that's the problem it's the positioning, massive gaps all over the field last night

But I did think Widnes did some nice passing close to our defensive line and it worked for them

I thought Clarkson and Keinhorst really struggled to read the play last night

It was a very good win in the circumstances. The young lads did well in attack, but made some poor decsions in defence at times, Sutcliffe and Keinhorst in particular were worryingly exposed on a few occasions.
Hardaker, and McShane were excellent I thought. Hardaker in particular is improving a little bit more in attack each game, and hopefully that continues.
We still have a lot to work on and Hudds you'd think will be big favourites on Sunday. Our line speed was good but some of our decsion making was poor, and if it doesn't improve next week, we could be in for a bit of a leathering.
I'd also consider bringing in another forward in on the bench for Minns or Keinhorst.

When we start to get a few first teamers back I can no longer see the justification for Kirke and Clarkson to retain places in the first team on a regular basis (and throw Moore in as well). Both were singled out by the Sky commentary team for making repeat defensive errors / blunders with the ball. They've been around the squad for long enough and would be among the first to go if we need to upgrade the contracts of some of the promising youngsters (IMO).

Sutcliffe really impressed me (despite some defensive issues), and Singleton and Baldwinson looked good.

Not all the kids shone though, and it has to be said that Keinhorst looks unable to make it at this level (I believe Gotcha called this some time ago). He's faster than Vickery but doesn't read the game as well in defence IMO.

Good to see Moon and Hall resume their much-vaunted combination. Achurch was disappointing.

It will be interesting to see how the new look halves and hooker combination fares in the coming weeks. McShane at 9 and Burrow at 7 seemed to revitalise our attack. Early days yet, but with the pressure from Sutcliffe and Ward I wonder if McGuire will have a difficult task to break back into the team when he gets fit.

Yes.

The tackling was excellent. Very enthusiastic. It was either some poor reads, a bit of lazy play or lack of organisation. Too many times the Widnes player went through the middle untouched.

He is barely worthy of comment any more. So average in all he does. When I say "all" I should say "naf all"

Singleton is the Anti Kirke. So aggressive in all contact. Baldwinson looked the part too. I'd like to see much more of both but, sadly, when the missing players are fit I suspect they will miss out on selection to the Big Friendly Giant.

THE HALL/MOON PARTNERSHIP....

I night throw a cat amongst the pigeons here but here goes...

I think that they dont gel

Moon is a fantastic centre and one of our stand out players for sure

The problem, i think, is that when moon draws in the defenders and then passes to Hall its often a back hand side pass at various levels/speeds and Hall never knows what pass he's gonna get, Hall is best at getting the ball in his hands and barging defenders out the way, for me, moon needs to be less flashy and give Hall the ball sooner and let him do his stuff cos alot of times moon holds on to it for too long and when Hall finally gets it he needs to cut inside and then the chance is gone

Id like to see how BJB and Moon work together and Jimmy and Hall, that would at least even out the quality at each side of the pitch, i think the opposition make sure the hall/moon side gets defended more stringent than the other

Yep. I also get the feeling that Clarkson is becoming the mini-me version of Kirke.